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Just four days after being elected to a fifth term as FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, in the midst of a corruption scandal, announced he would resign from his post once a successor is found. Here are seven sudden retirements that stunned the sports world.

Rocky Marciano - Boxing

The undefeated heavyweight boxing champion of the world, Rocky Marciano went out on top in 1956 at the age of 32, a few months after knocking out Archie Moore in his sixth title defence. The hard-charging Marciano, from Brockton, Massachusetts, was known for his relentless punishing style and iron jaw. At five-foot-11, 190 pounds he compiled the greatest knockout percentage of any professional boxer, 87.75 per cent, knocking out 43 of 49 opponents.
Marciano won his first pro fight in 1947 and defeated former world heavyweight champion Joe Louis in 1951. A year later he won the heavyweight title with a 13th round knockout of Jersey Joe Walcott.

Jim Brown - Football

Named the greatest pro football player ever by The Sporting News in 2002, Jim Brown led the National Football League in rushing eight times. He played for the Cleveland Browns from 1957-65 and scored 100 touchdowns in his first 93 games. He set the NFL record for rushing with 1,863 yards in 1963, a mark that still stands as the best ever by a Cleveland player. When he called it quits in 1965 Brown held the career rushing yardage record with 12,312 yards.But at the age of 29 Brown followed his yearning for an acting career which began in 1964 with a role in the film Rio Conchos. By 1967 Brown had a major role in The Dirty Dozen and played a lead role in dozens of films all the way through 2014's The Draft.

Johan Cruyff - Soccer

The star of the Netherlands football team that went to the 1974 World Cup Final championship match (a 2-1 loss to Germany), Johan Cruyff won the Golden Ball as the most valuable player of the tournament. He scored 33 goals in only 48 international matches for the Dutch before suddenly announcing his retirement from international competition shortly before the team was headed to Argentina for the 1978 World Cup.At first Cruyff, who helped the Netherlands qualify for the 1978 competition, was said to have withdrawn from the team because he was against the military dictatorship that ruled Argentina at the time. However, later it was revealed that Cruyff's family was involved in a kidnapping attempt in Barcelona the previous year and that he didn't want the strain of being away from them.

Bjorn Borg - Tennis

The Swedish player with ice water in his veins, Bjorn Borg won 11 Grand Slam tournaments in the late 70's and early 80's, dominating at the French Open (six wins) and Wimbledon (five consecutive titles), with his last major triumph coming at Roland Garros in 1981. After losing to John McEnroe in the 1981 U.S. Open final, Borg knew he was at the end of the line, despite 64 career titles.He hardly played in 1982 and announced his retirement in January, 1983. Bjorn was just 26.

Michael Jordan - Basketball

There have been three retirements by Michael Jordan, the first, in 1993, was a stunner. A five-time National Basketball Association MVP, Jordan was coming off the Chicago Bulls' three-peat of the NBA title earlier that year. Jordan said he lacked any desire to compete and cited the murder of his father the year before as a reason to quit. He also said his father's wish was for him to play professional baseball and Jordan played in the Southern League, under manager Terry Francona, but proved not to be a superstar with a .202 average, including just three home runs and 51 RBIs.Jordan returned to the Bulls for another three-peat from 1996-98, retired for a second time and then played for the Washington Wizards before finally retiring for good.

Kirby Puckett - Baseball

A 10-time all-star outfielder, Kirby Puckett was the heart of two World Series championship teams with the Minnesota Twins in 1987 and 1991. The six-time Silver Slugger award winner led the American League in hitting in 1989 with a .337 average.In spring training in Florida in 1996, Puckett, 36, woke up one March morning and couldn't see out of his right eye. Diagnosed with glaucoma, he endured three surgeries but announced his retirement in July of that year.

Lorena Ochoa - Golf

The world's top golfer for three years from 2007-2010, Lorena Ochoa, the first Mexican to rise to number one in the Ladies Professional Golf Association rankings, walked away from the pro tour in May, 2010 at the age of 28.
A winner of 27 tour events including major championships in 2007 and 2008, Ochoa said she had realized her dreams of playing 10 years on the tour and reaching No. 1 status.The Guadalajara native hosts the Lorena Ochoa Invitational in support of her foundation which operates a school in Guadalajara for 250 under-privileged children.

What Lance Armstrong misses most about being one of the world’s most popular athletes

Lance Armstrong, who won a record seven Tour de France titles and was later stripped of his victories because he used performance-enhancing drugs, appeared Tuesday on “The Dan Patrick Show,” where he was asked about how he’s treated in public these days, whether there was still cheating going on at the Tour de France, and what he found "most addicting" during his tainted reign on top of the world.

Armstrong was invited on "The Dan Patrick Show" because he had sent one of his Tour de France yellow jerseys in hopes that it might get hung up in the show's "ManCave" on the set.

“What’s more addicting, the winning or the lifestyle?” Patrick asked.

“I’d offer up a third one,” Armstrong said. “The addictive part for me was the process. I mean, I loved going to the races, and ultimately playing it out and winning the race — whether we say that those happened or not, or I won or not, that’s for others to decide — but just the process, the training camps, the time with the team, with guys you love and trust, working hard, busting your ass, to try to put it together.

“Because those are the moments where there’s nobody around, you don’t have to deal with the hysteria of the Tour, which is a million people a day and it’s just nerve-racking. I really miss that sort of behind-the-scenes, hard-work part.”

The US Anti-Doping Agency, or USADA, stripped Armstrong of his seven Tour titles in October 2012. In its "Reasoned Decision," USADA said that evidence against Armstrong showed beyond any doubt that the US Postal Service Pro Cycling Team, with Armstrong as its leader,"ran the most sophisticated, professionalized and successful doping program that sport has ever seen."

Before he got caught for doping, Armstrong was considered by many to be the greatest cyclist in the history of the sport, which historically had been largely dominated by Europeans.

What Lance Armstrong misses most about being one of the world’s most popular athletes

Patrick asked Armstrong what it was like for him to go out to places like Starbucks these days and what his interactions with the public were like.

“Is it more what they say to you, or are you listening more to whispers?” Patrick asked.

“You know,” Armstrong said, “it’s amazing. In person, people face to face are very kind and generous. And I’ve never to this day had a bad reaction or a quote-unquote ‘hater’ come up and wanna get into it … you always get the sense that people would like to say something, but people are more decent than we give them credit for, and they never do.

“If I was put in that position, I’d say, ‘Look, I get it. I know you’re upset. I know that you’re specifically upset with me, and I’ll spend the rest of my life walking through and trying to make right.’”

Patrick also asked, “Would you guess that there’s still cheating at the Tour de France?”

“That’s the most common question I get,” Armstrong said, “and my answer is, I honestly have no idea, because, for all the obvious reasons, I’ve been so far removed from the sport, from a competitive standpoint or just as an insider, I have no idea.”

Patrick immediately followed up: “The eye test, though — and I know you’re probably trying to be nice to your sport — but just the eye test. Does it pass the eye test?”

Armstrong paused, laughed, and hesitated some more before saying, “Oh, I don’t know.”

To which Patrick quickly said, “You’ve answered it — you’ve answered it.”

But Armstrong quickly added: “No, no, hang on … because anytime somebody has a spectacular performance it automatically equals suspicion, and suspicion equals the suspicion of PEDs. And if you look at the times that are being ridden, and if they’re faster than a dirty era — call my era of cycling ‘the dirty era’ — and if the times are that much faster, then you have to apply them to both.”Patrick also asked Armstrong if he thought we’d ever get to the point where we'd legalize performance-enhancing drugs:

“I get that question a lot … I don’t think so. Primarily, I think the media would just go haywire. I think The New York Times would just light its building on fire if that were the case. And quite honestly, I don’t think that’s a good solution either … and I don’t think that’ll happen.”

Armstrong went on to talk about his years racing and cheating with PEDs:

"Look, I’m not trying to make excuses ... but this wave that we were all riding — the sport, the industry, the team, my foundation, the entire cancer community — this wave was a monster. And I'm sitting there riding this thing, going, all right, if this thing … comes crashing down, I know what’s gonna happen. And I was afraid of that.

"I didn’t want to have a negative impact on my sport. I didn’t want to have a negative impact on the great work that Livestrong was doing … But more importantly was this tremendous momentum that I was terrified of negatively affecting.”

He also said:

"I did not have an exit strategy. And of course I was my own worst enemy, by the tone of my denials and the aggressiveness of it. By doing that it just ensured that this would be a topic for life."

Asked what he was going to do with the rest of his Tuesday, Armstrong said, “I’m literally an Uber driver for my kids. That’s all I do … I was going to go for a run, have lunch with my lady … Not playing golf today, which is kind of a bummer.”

Anna Hansen and Lance Armstrong at the Aspen Art Museum in 2013.

Before Armstrong, no cyclist had ever won more than five Tours. That Armstrong, a cancer survivor, won seven Tours in a row captured the attention of the entire world. The three-week Tour de France is the world's largest annual sporting event.

The sport made Armstrong a multimillionaire and brought him fame. His net worth, according to The New York Times, was estimated at $125 million in 2012.

In August 2014 he told Dan Patrick that he still believed he won those seven Tours but no longer wore a Livestrong bracelet. In December 2014 he crashed his SUV into two parked cars in Colorado and left the scene without contacting police. His girlfriend, Anna Hansen, tried to take the blame, telling Aspen police she wanted to keep his name out of national headlines.

In February, Armstrong was ordered to pay back $10 million in Tour de France prize money.

TENNIS

PARIS (AP) - Stumbling on his way to the net, Roger Federer dropped his racket and fell to his knees on the red clay. Hardly the sort of grace and precision the world has come to expect from the 17-time Grand Slam champion.

There were other unusual sights in Federer's 6-4, 6-3, 7-6 (4) loss in the French Open quarterfinals against his pal and Swiss Davis Cup teammate Stan Wawrinka.
Rarely injured and appearing in a 62nd consecutive major, Federer received treatment on his right hand from a trainer. For years and years a dominant and confident force in tennis, Federer slumped in his changeover chair, head bowed, after falling behind two sets to none. And, according to the ATP, this was the first time since a fourth-round loss at the 2002 U.S. Open - back before he'd won a major trophy - that Federer failed to break an opponent's serve once in a Grand Slam match.
Wawrinka, who will play 14th-seeded Jo-Wilfried Tsonga of France in the semifinals Friday. Tsongabeat No. 5 Kei Nishikori 6-1, 6-4, 4-6, 3-6, 6-3.
In the women's drawl, No. 7 Ana Ivanovic advanced to a semifinal matchup against No. 13 Lucie Safarova. Safarova beat Garbine Muguruza 7-6 (3), 6-3 to reach the second major semifinal of her career. Ivanovic reached her first Grand Slam semifinal since winning the 2008 French Open by defeating Elina Svitolina of Ukraine 6-3, 6-2.