[Closed] who would you vote greatest sportsperson in history?

Ali? Thomson? Hoy?

Lance Armstrong

Bob Nudd

Nah Ivan Marks if were talking fishermen

Any others it would have to be Ali

IOM TT riders, but Joey Dunlop and John McGuiness stand out...

Mohammed Ali was the greatest,. He must of been because he said so often enough 😉

Ali. End of.

Geoff Boycott. He told me himself.

Rachel

Sir Steve Redgrave. Olympian of the very highest order who overcame severe illness to do what he did. Proper hero material.

Kelly Slater 11x world surfing champion

David Beckham

Sparkyspice has it. Recognition for the multiple success in dangerous sport.

Then you get a **** and his dangerous football.

Either Lance or Schu. Both excelled at cheating.

Why Ali?

Seb Coe, he showed epic determination and single mindedness in order to succeed on the track, he took this mentality into the workplace and succeeded in giving the world the Olympics and the legacy of countless youngsters putting down the Wii/PS3/X-Box and picking up a piece of sports kit.

Carlton Cole

Don Bradman.

Ali for a myriad of reasons. Followed by Pele, Bradman, Senna & Bolt

Someone please explain to me why Ali is always considered 'The Greatest', OK I agree that he was very good in his time and at his chosen sport, but thinking about this I'm not sold... Being very good at beating a man into submission in a sport that draws a small number of participants (in comparison to others) is not enough in my mind.

Take Pele or Maradona for example, I would estimate (without bothering to look up the figures) that football is one of the most participated sports on the planet, as such to be considered by players and fans alike as the 'best' surely makes this a much, much harder feat to achieve.

Then there's the extreme end of sports such as Surfing, Skiing, Snowboarding, MTB etc... some of which don't even have notable competitions by which to pitch one against the other, anyone who regularly throws a 360 barrel roll of a 100ft cliff and lands it is massively high in my book. OK, so these sports also have lower participation but the things these people do are simply out of this world. Someone mentioned Kelly Slater, have to admit that's a pretty good shout.

Ali, no... doesn't get my vote good as he was. Pele, probably because he was astonishingly good in an age of superb players or someone like Seth Morrison (extreme Skier) who is just unbelievably good and, considering what he does, should be dead a long time but continues to Ski impossible lines...

Seems I have too much time on my hands... Got to love Christmas haven't you 😉

Quick mention for Seve.

EDIT: A surfer? My arse. 😆

Senna, Robbie Naish or Dougie Lampkin.

Sugar Ray Robinson

Tony hawk

If this is to be judged on the person who made you jump and shout and scream the most then for me it is this man.

[img] [/img]

Who will mean nothing to you unless you followed Salford or Halifax.

Tazio Nuvolari.
Ayrton Senna.
John Surtees.
Juan Fangio.
Or maybe Sebastian Loeb or (as much as I hate to say it) Michael Schumacher. You could make a good case for any of them.
.
To venture away from motorsport how about Roger Bannister or W G Grace?

Ask Zinadine Zidane. He'll tell you....
[img] [/img]... Paul Scholes

(and who am I to disagree)

It always makes me smile when somebody claims Ali as the greatest.

Ali was a very good boxer. Certainly not the best though. He lost decisions and won gift decisions against guys of his era.
Ali was as big a racist as you could meet. He used racism against people who had previously given him help.
Ali was a hypocrite. His stance against the Vietnam war was more about lost revenue if he got drafted and was unable to box.

Sugar Ray Robinson is today most often regarded as the best boxer ever. Those boxing fans of an older generation would say Joe Louis was the greatest ... before him Dempsey, Jeffries and Sullivan would have been named.

Ali is/was never the greatest. Only hype & ignorance could ever claim different.

I don't get the Ali thing either...
*puts kettle on and hands out can openers for the worms I bought in the Sales*
He was World champion on more than one occasion and regained his title years after he first got it. The thriller in Manilla and the Rumble in the Jungle we're awesome bouts, but surely Redgrave for having been at the top of his sport for so long is an amazing feat even if it is a 'minority sport'.
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?
I'm all for minority sports too, (having played water polo in a former life), but to rise to the top is obviously easier because you are competing against less adversaries...
A vote for Stephen Hendry?
Federer, Fangio, Messi, Ingrid Christianson, Tiger, Tendulkar, all great and gifted. My vote for the TT riders was purely because I have no idea how they have the balls to do what they do. Pure bravery.

I'd like to see Ali face a Paul Scholes tackle.

edit: not now, obviously - that would just be cruel.

You mean a Scholes foul, he never made a tackle in his life.

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

Ashley Cole

[img]professionalathletehomes.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/michael_jordan-1166.jpg[/img]

This Guy, Bjorn Dunkerbeck (Windsurfer)
"(PWA) Overall World Championships a record twelve times"
"Overall World Champion (1988–1999)
Race World Champion (1988–1999) and 2011
Wave World Champion (1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2001)
Freestyle World Champion (1998)
Speed World Champion (1994)"
[img] [/img]

Then
Steffi Graf

Graf was ranked World No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks—the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings.
[img] [/img]

I think possibly no other player has dominated a team or majority sport and been so far ahead in terms of statistics that Bradman would be a good contender.

Nicklaus in golf maybe.

Redgrave has a case.....

Philippe Senderos.

lol

Elbry Sandland

A lot of British people mentioned I see, you bunch of nasty patriotic jingoistic bastards.

My vote goes to Daley Thompson.

^^hardly any British people achieve as much as Foreigners^^*

*this is true

No it isn't.

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.

Usain Bolt or Phil Taylor

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

Michael Phelps maybe?