Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 143 total)
  • who would you vote greatest sportsperson in history?
  • sbob
    Free Member

    No it isn’t.

    Coyote
    Free Member

    Leaving aside Tom B’s rather excellent suggestion of Elbry Sandland, I would say that is an impossible and futile activity trying to name the “greatest sportsperson” in history.

    Different skills, physical and mental requirements and width of participation mean that there is no way of comparing. Add to that the constant evolution and improvement of the sports and competitors and it becomes impossible.

    My vote goes for Elbry as he is truly in a field of his own.

    justatheory
    Free Member

    Usain Bolt or Phil Taylor

    fd3chris
    Free Member

    Ricky Car Michael, he redefined how to ride a motocross bike.

    ianv
    Free Member

    Michael Phelps maybe?

    loum
    Free Member

    [video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=fg67SloPBwU[/video]

    Riksbar
    Full Member

    Leonidas of Rhodes

    Nipper99
    Free Member

    HW Tilman

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Carl Lewis or Joss Naylor.

    codybrennan
    Free Member

    Phidippides.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    No beer – damn beat me to Joss! So +1

    Is Phidippides related to Philippides in some way? 😉

    esselgruntfuttock
    Free Member

    Your’e never gonna work out who the greatest ever is. Too many sports to take in & lots of sportsmen & women who are/have excelled at their particular sport.

    But for my penneth…


    HALL OF FAME by jimmyg352, on Flickr

    Wayne Gretzky isn’t called ‘The Great One’ for nothing.

    irc
    Full Member

    Jim Thorpe. Won the 1912 Olympic Pentathlon and Decathlon and was a good enough all rounder to play professional American football, baseball, and basketball.

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe

    FeeFoo
    Free Member

    the man was a machine on a bike

    The man was (the best drugs taking) machine on a bike

    ***runs for cover***

    codybrennan
    Free Member

    @thm- both spellings are apparently valid. Pedant. 🙂

    druidh
    Free Member

    Ali. Maybe you have to be “of an age” but it was the way he transcended his sport.

    yossarian
    Free Member

    See those who think Ali shouldn’t be on the podium because of this and that are forgetting something very important. Ali completely transcended sport. Actually he transcended politics and religion too. There isn’t another compatible athlete that has ever lived. And he was loved and hated in equal measures across the globe but no-one ever doubted his bravery and courage and everybody knew his name. Ali is the greatest, not for his titles or his achievements in boxing. And really that says it all.

    teamhurtmore
    Free Member

    So they are – at least three spellings I can see now! I stand corrected – apologies for failed pedantry!!

    You always learn something on STW.

    deadlydarcy
    Free Member

    but it was the way he transcended his sport

    And this for me is why many of the above suggestions are bollocks.

    And why Ali, Pele, Seve, Senna are fair suggestions.

    lazybike
    Free Member

    Got to be Lance 7 TDF wins, even on drugs thats got to be hard…he’s also managed to clean the sport up….chapeau

    Or Messi…..

    Tom-B
    Free Member

    Elbry transcends most common thoughts on mtbing.

    yunki
    Free Member

    Another vote for Bob Nudd

    or perhaps Phil Taylor

    bikebouy
    Free Member

    but it was the way he transcended his sport

    but it was the way he transcended his sport

    dannyh
    Free Member

    Statistically there are two sportsman who stand out when compared to everyone else who has played the same sports before or since. By stand out I mean at least a standard deviation ahead of the best other sports people before or since.

    They are Don Bradman and Wayne Gretsky

    Yes, but Bradman couldn’t bowl. Garry Sobers could – quick swing, wrist spin or finger spin – world record holder for highest score for over 30 years and one of the best close catchers the game has known. And he did a fair amount of it whilst knocking back the rum and cokes of an evening. Add in a scratch golf handicap left handed and playing off of 4 (I think) right-handed, and you have one hell of a sportsman.

    lazybike
    Free Member

    We need 2 catagories…games and sport.

    avdave2
    Full Member

    Ed Moses has to be on the list.

    yunki
    Free Member

    We need 2 categories…games and sport.

    which does cricket fall into…?
    and football..?

    patriotpro
    Free Member

    Joe Calzaghe was a better pound for pound fighter than Mo-hammered “I am the veinest” Ali, imo. So Joe Calzaghe.

    Also the one and only Pele must get a vote for his effortless displays of skills and style on the world-stage.

    joolsburger
    Free Member

    Ali – By the simple expedient of asking 6 women that happen to be in my house currently, it’s just not quantifiable but ask 100 people and I reckon Ali wins every time.

    yunki
    Free Member

    ali is a very lazy answer though isn’t it..?

    we’ve all been conditioned by the media to consider ali ‘the greatest’
    but what is it exactly that makes him so..?

    patriotpro
    Free Member

    we’ve all been conditioned by the media to consider ali ‘the greatest’

    That’s your answer right there!

    mt
    Free Member

    I’ll second the HW Tilman.

    andrewh
    Free Member

    We need 2 categories…games and sport.

    which does cricket fall into…?
    and football..?

    .
    There are three sports, bullfighting, motor-racing and mountaineering. Everything else is merely a game.
    Ernest Hemmingway.
    .
    And good shout for Joss Naylor. [there was a good song about him over on the youtube but it seems to have vanished, link anyone?)
    I don’t think Phidipedes (sp?) was doing it as a sport though, he was just trying to go somewhere quicker than walking.

    mooman
    Free Member

    yunki – Member

    ali is a very lazy answer though isn’t it..?

    we’ve all been conditioned by the media to consider ali ‘the greatest’
    but what is it exactly that makes him so..?

    Totally agree.
    Ask these people why he is the greatest. And they will struggle .. and say because he transcended this – that – or whatever … 🙄
    And what they really mean is. He was hyped a great deal along time ago .. and their father repeated it to them when they were young … and its kinda stuck ever since.
    The greatest sportsman … never.
    Greatest over-hyped sportsman … probably.

    Ali is as much the greatest sportsman ever as Armstrong is the greatest cyclist ever.
    The media may often say so. But that doesnt always mean its correct.

    curiousyellow
    Free Member

    Roger Federer.

    I have never seen an athlete capable of such artistry in any sport.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    Had Redgrave been black and from Harlem and he’d changed his religion to Jedi halfway through his career, would it of made his achievements any greater?

    Well, yes, possibly, if the doing of those things greatly endangered his ability to achieve those achievements. It’s easy from 40 years later to forget how potent the forces of segregation and racism were – there were many people who attempted to end Ali’s career for his political and religous beliefs.

    The difference is between being quite good at games and being a great person – Ali was a good sportsman, but also entertaining and engaging, and a man of principle, and who was a participant in pivotal and zeitgeisty events. Redgrave is just some guy that won ribbons for moving the boats fastest. Ali was a lightning rod for the conflicts emerging out of the civil rights struggle. Redgrave is a tedious man in a boring sport.

    The question is fatuous.

    thekingisdead
    Free Member

    Roger Federer.

    I have never seen an athlete capable of such artistry in any sport.

    I have to agree with this. Federer in his pomp hit shots that you wouldn’t thought possible.

    The GOAT.

    Edit: Senna also did this, Donington 93, quali at Monaco in 88 etc.

    piemonster
    Full Member

    Well if Joss is getting a shout

    Helene Diamantides

    piemonster
    Full Member

    It’s easy from 40 years later to forget how potent the forces of segregation and racism

    In which case, Jesse Owens

    andrewh
    Free Member

    Senna also did this, Donington 93, quali at Monaco in 88 etc

    88 was way before my time but I can just about remember Donnington, he was just in a different league to everyone else. Button in Canada last year was the closest to that kind of thing we’ve seen recently. The others all pick Senna when asked to pick the greatest (even Prost concedes he was very good) Schumacher picked Senna as the best but has also been quoted as saying the only driver he really feared was Mika Hakkinen.
    I’m still going for Nuvolari or Surtees though.
    .
    Or for an example of great sportsmanship, Peter Collins. He could have won the world championship, and was practically a certainty when Fangio’s car broke down in the final race of the year. He stopped his car, got out and gave it to Fangio. “You take it, I’m still young and will get my chance again” (or words to that effect) He was killed the following year.

Viewing 40 posts - 41 through 80 (of 143 total)

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