Who has dominated their sport to the greatest extent?

True, but to do a proper comparison with cycling it would also be the equivalent of having picked up a few road and trials championships while truly dominating XC and DH.

Hey was winning: (with a rough (arguable) comparison to cycle sports)
Course racing and long distance (Road)
Slalom (XC)
Wave (DH)
Freestyle (Trials)
Speed (Time trial)

Is there anyone out there who can ride a road bike like Contador, XC bike like Absalon, DH like Danny Hart, Trials like Danny Mac, Time Trial like Cancellara and compete on one of these disciplines today and then the other the next.

Yup, that sums up Dunkerbeck better. True master…

Benny The Jet

63(ish) world titles!

Jared Graves and Jill Kintner in 4x, especially as 4x is dead.

anyone said jan zelezni* yet?

(javelinist)

(*spelling?)

Joss Naylor?
Those who know the name know I’m right!

*cough* Billy Bland *cough*

My actual vote would go to Haile Gebrselassie though.

Ricky Carmicheal in motocross? Unbeatlable for ten years fromt eh mid 90s IIRC

Mike Tyson dominated heavyweight boxing like no other . World class opponents were mostly terrified before the first bell and usually dispached in double quick time . Then Buster Douglas went and beat him , albeit with the help of a long count , and it all went downhill from there as they say .

Mike Tyson dominated heavyweight boxing like no other . World class opponents were mostly terrified before the first bell and usually dispached in double quick time . Then Buster Douglas went and beat him , albeit with the help of a long count , and it all went downhill from there as they say .

Not really. He was certainly dominant but the opposition was pish-weak. He in fact faced no world-class fighters in their prime at all pre- Douglas. Larry Holmes was a great fighter, but way past his best (40 yo), as was Michael Spinks who was a world class light-heavy in his day. Who else did he fight that was seriously good pre-Douglas?
Iron Mike doesn’t crack the top ten all time of heavy weights, more like top 20. Which is still high praise, given the history of the most important division in boxing.

He fought , and beat , everybody who was around at the time , what more could he do . Quality of opposition is subjective but the original question was not who has dominated their sport because the opposition was shit was it . Anyway it wasn’t just that he beat them it was how he beat them .

What about Alberto Tomba? Seem to remember him being pretty sucessful when I was growing up

In there, take a peek, is Laird Hamilton. Now I know he’s not dominated his sport (surfing) but he has dominated Big Wave surfing and developed toe-in surfing. He’s got b*lls I say.

Tyson in his prime would have given any heavyweight from any era a good fight if not a good hiding. Ali is the greatest no question but Tysons speed, power and ferocity would have had all of them in a world of hurt.

Garry Kasparov. Pretty much dominated chess championships for the duration of his 20 odd year career.

Is chess a sport now?

I’d say so. Given, not a physically demanding sport – much like snooker in that respect – but mentally I imagine it would be in order to compete at the top level. Not many other hobbies have world championships either. 🙂

Nigel Mansell, Colin Macrae, The Williams Sisters, Nick Faldo

Nigel Mansell, Colin Macrae, The Williams Sisters, Nick Faldo

❓

McRae only won the WRC once
Mansell only won the F1 title once
Williams sisters are worth a mention
Faldo, although he won 6 majors, didn’t dominate golf in the way someone like Nicklaus or Woods did.

Right. After much pub discussion I think I have a winner. (But as I never heard of him Im sure someone will b able to tear it apart).

I cant think of anyone achieving the domination of their sport for 26 years or more. So I present to you:

Gordon Richards

And for those who have no idea who he is:
Wiki

Granted, he did need some help to win but….

Nigel Mansell, Colin Macrae

er, Ayrton Senna/Michael Schumacher, Carlos Sainz/Juha Kankkunen/Tommi Makinen

Jockeys don’t count. It’s the horse that does all the work.

*puts marshmallows on stick ready for flaming*

Franz Klammer??

Steve Webster 10x sidecar world champ

The correct answer is of course Don Bradman.

His results show the largest deviation from the next best of any sportsman in any major sport.

Lots of other sportsmen can lay claim to long periods of dominance but if you look at the results they were just consistently a bit better than everyone around them. Bradman was miles better than everyone around him.

Usain Bolt for example is currently totally dominating sprinting he is between 3 and 5% faster than the guys around him which is a huge margin in sprinting. Bradman’s batting average is 30% better than anyone who ever played cricket

How about Joey Dunlop?

26 TT victories,
24 Ulster GP victories,
13 NW200 victories.

I think it’s fair to say that he pretty much dominated road racing!

In one of the nineties winter olympics I remember hearing about a speed skater who won everything from the sprint to the marathon. Can’t remember who he was though, anyone here know?

MB – Eric Heiden, became a cyclist after that.

I still think its ACC FTW. All those victories and world champs in downhill. Then total domination of the mega and other marathon DH events. AND if she made a comeback to downhill she would still probably kick ass after all those years of retirement. She was/is on a totally different level to the competition.

Ingemar Stenmark

Red Rum?
Pele
Ali
Merckx

They were my faves when i were a lad

Sergey Bubka – Pole Vaulter
had an olympic curse but dominated the sport for 16 years as world champion setting 35 world records and still holds the world record set 17 years ago…

Never smashed the world record by any margin more than 1cm which I always though strange until I realised he got paid quite a princely sum every time he broke the W. So 35 big pay days rather than 1!!!

You can’t say that one person is better than all the others as it’s impossible to compare objectively by I’ll restate that Redgrave definitely up there.

He won 5 Olypmic golds – that covers 17 years. During that time he also won 9 World Championships. Rowing World Champs don’t cover events that are at the Olympics in Olympic years so that means that Redgrave won the top event of the year 14 times out of 17. In the years he didn’t win the WC, he got two silvers and a bronze. For a couple of those seasons he didn’t win, he was also competing in Bobsleigh.

He was also unbeaten from 1993 to 1996 inclusive.

And other than the first couple of WC wins (Coxed pairs – more prestigeous than it would be now but maybe not a top event), he always raced in the competitive categories. Pairs and Coxless fours. In fact, during some periods, he was so dominant that some other countries stopped putting their best people in those categories as they knew that they couldn’t win.

Ron Jeremy !!! 😳

Joss Naylor?
Those who know the name know I’m right!

*cough* Billy Bland *cough*

My actual vote would go to Haile Gebrselassie though.

Joss was a great athlete but only really excelled at the longer fell races. Over shorter distances he was not a patch on the likes of Kenny Stuart who IMO was possibly the best fell runner of all time. More dominant still would be Ian Holmes but how many have heard of him?
Billy Bland very good but dominant in his day?

Haille maybe but again he was up against some fantastic runners such as Tergat who on occasion beat him.

Not this time though!

In fact, during some periods, he was so dominant that some other countries stopped putting their best people in those categories as they knew that they couldn’t win.

Of course the GB rowing team wouldn’t have ever done that with Redgrave when the competition was too good…

Which does really point out one of the issues with suggesting dominance in a sport like rowing – the best people quite often don’t compete against each other at all.

Lots of people mentioning those who were “virtually unbeatable” but for 9 years 9 months and 9 days Ed Moses was totally unbeatable. 122 consecutive wins, 107 in finals and even after finally being defeated he replied with a further 10 consecutive wins.

If you want to beat Ed in this thread you need to find someone who remained undefeated for at least 9 years 9 months and 10 days.

there is only one ‘athlete’ that has dominated so much…..

I can only think of Dale Holmes on his bmx. Havent really followed any other sports.

This thread is also naturally rather insular – I’d suggest that Birgit Fischer has a rather better record than SSR. Gold medals at 6 consecutive games she competed in (would almost certainly have been 7 but for the boycott of LA84). Gold medals at all but one non-Olympic year WC for 20 years (excluding the 3 years for which she was “retired”).

In fact I don’t know why I didn’t remember her before – arguably with her 20 year reign at the top of a very physically tough Olympic sport she trumps everybody else.

The correct answer is of course Don Bradman.

I seem to recall a statistical comparison a few years back, and it’s actually Gretzky.

Anyhoo, it’s those two, by miles …

If you want to beat Ed in this thread you need to find someone who remained undefeated for at least 9 years 9 months and 10 days.

I dont agree. Coe and Ovett remained unbeaten for long periods because they avoided each other!
In addition some sports have high barriers to entry for example show jumping (pardon the pun) its not open to kids off council estates so it quite possible that the best show jumper has never ridden a horse! If you invest millions in show jumping and somehow become the “best” is that the same as Moses who fought off challenges from every track runner who fancied their chances?
Your example of Moses is a good one though, great athlete and poetry in motion!