Sports Who, in your opinion, is the greatest athlete of all time?

[HairyO]

Ellyse Perry being a dual international in cricket and soccer is pretty impressive

Women doing well in women only immature sports isnt that special.

Courney Dauwalter won a 240 mile running race. She beat the bloke who finished 2nd by 10 hours.

When she isnt training she enjoys burgers and beer. What you would call a "keeper".

 

[Silent Alarm]

Probably between Bolt and Phelps.

Phelps has 23 Olympic gold medals and 28 medals overall. Given the next best has 9 & 18 that's a phenomenal record.

Bolt doesn't have the same suite of events available to him but the triple 100, 200, 4 x 100 gold trifecta 3 Olympics in a row (now just 8/8 after a DSQ for a relay teammate) is pretty special, and he is to this point the fastest man in history. He was so casually dominant.

Both probably drug cheats.

Bolt is faster then the top ten other 'fastest' men... who are all done for doping.

Up there with a certain female Australian tennis player as some of the most obvious drug users in sport.

* 'em.

Ali, Federer are my sorts. Federer did well in a pretty good era but let's be honest, he was shitful for a good 2-3 years while Novak came through, Murray pisspants won a couple, and Nadal got in decent form. He couldn't keep it up when they were at their peak.

People saying some shitty middle weight boxer like Mundine.. ya jokin.

 

[HomerThompson]

Salim Malik. Cheated half the time and still had an average over 50.





Not serious.

 

[undefined]

Jack Wilshere.

 

[GPW1]

Fev

 

[M Malice]

Seriously for sheer statistical domination over every other batsman to ever play the sport the Don has to be number 1.

 

[Rotayjay]

Sir Donald Bradman. Nobody has ever dominated a sport like he did - and he still stands head and shoulders above the rest, seventy years after his retirement.

Edit: beaten to it

 

[Skeppersap]

A third in a row for Don Bradman. His record stands so much above every other player to ever play cricket, it is almost beyond question.

Is there anyone in any other sport that has essentially been over 50% better than every other player in history?

Forget swimming gold medal counts as well.... Who cares when they compete in so many events!!!

How people can compare Federer to Bradman is beyond me. There is a case to be made for Federer not even being the best tennis player of this generation!

 

[Freofalcon]

Michael Phelps.

So many Gold Meldals and all done whilst smoking the peace pipe.

 

[Jobe Watson]

Sir Donald Bradman. Nobody has ever dominated a sport like he did - and he still stands head and shoulders above the rest, seventy years after his retirement.

Wayne Gretzky still holds 60 NHL records. Only 1 of them has been beaten since he retired nearly 20 years ago. In terms of an individual player dominating a team sport, he'd be right up there.

 

[HairyO]

Sir Donald Bradman. Nobody has ever dominated a sport like he did - and he still stands head and shoulders above the rest, seventy years after his retirement.

Edit: beaten to it

Walter Lindrum?

 

[Jcpdragonx]

For me I think its Jordan or Federer. Also, both will always be the face of their sports, so that might create a bit of an illusion but still.

If Lebron had Phil Jackson as a coach I think it could have been Lebron.

 

[ChappyUK]

My vote:

View attachment 436954

I don' class tennis players as athletes. They are sportspeople.

Usain Bolt or Michael Johnson are the best athletes.

 

[Neese]

Decathlon winners

 

[Dhoni Dakurri]

I don' class tennis players as athletes. They are sportspeople.

Righto

 

[Dhoni Dakurri]

Wayne Gretzky still holds 60 NHL records. Only 1 of them has been beaten since he retired nearly 20 years ago. In terms of an individual player dominating a team sport, he'd be right up there.

Kelly Slater goes alright too in his sport

 

[Freofalcon]

Wayne Gretzky still holds 60 NHL records. Only 1 of them has been beaten since he retired nearly 20 years ago. In terms of an individual player dominating a team sport, he'd be right up there.

NHL.

Lol.

Even the Yanks couldn't give a s**t about the NHL.

 

[The Passenger]

Ice Hockey is very popular through Europe. Definitely not a sport to be disregarded in these sort of talks due to a lack of popularity or insular nature. Compared to say cricket, It wouldn't have as many followers or participants worldwide due to how populated the sub-continent (particularly India) is, but in terms of widespread popularity over multiple countries and regions it's a worldwide sport (as is cricket, just for the record).

 

[The Passenger]

To answer the OP Usain Bolt for me. Completely blanketed the 100m and 200m from 2008 to 2016 (minus one DQ in 2011 100m) in probably the most competitive discipline's in sport.

Phelps huge medal hauls mean he is obviously the best swimmer of all time and one of the all time great athletes across all sports. But the way swimming is structured the medal tally for a swimmer can balloon out. Particularly if they are from the USA where their relay teams are so strong due to depth. Gymnastics is the same. When you look at the list of leading Olympic medalists it is dominated by swimmers and gymnasts.

I've always thought swimming would be better if the non-freestyle strokes were 100m and 400m (200 and 800 for medleys) to get a bit more disparity in the medalists - although the last two Olympics haven't been as bad as some for this. Looking at some of swimming biggest medalists Gary Hall Junior never broke an individual world record but has 10 Olympic medals. Matt Biondi's 50/100 golden double in 1988 swells out to a total of 8 gold medals after relays and 11 medals in total.

 

[troybe]

Decathlon winners

So who's better? Bruce or Caitlyn?


On iPhone using BigFooty.com mobile app

 

[M Malice]

Walter Lindrum?

Garry Kasparov?
Phil Taylor?
Phil Hellmuth?

 

[HairyO]

Garry Kasparov?
Phil Taylor?
Phil Hellmuth?

Hellmuth has been beaten many times. Ivey is maybe more the one. But even he loses often enough.

Kasparov and basically every other chess player profited from Bobby Fisher quitting the world at a young age.

Not sure if darts is a sport but I do love a game where you balance yourself by holding a beer in your other hand.

 

[Big Cox 88]

Dwayne Leverock the cricketer from Bermuda

 

[M Malice]

Not sure if darts is a sport but I do love a game where you balance yourself by holding a beer in your other hand.

I was being slightly facetious with my post H, I think to be classified an athlete you need to engage in some sort of physical exertion.

Chess, Poker, Darts, Snooker I would class as pass times not sport even though there can be plenty of dollars on the line. I do enjoy watching the poker and the darts occasionally though.

 

[the_interloper]

He's also a massive plonker who fought plenty of chumps. Loves playing the race card too.

He was able to make shitloads in Aus fighting local guys he could beat versus making less fighting more dangerous guys overseas. He still did fight Daniel Geale, Sam Soliman, Danny Green though, the best of the Aussies and did ok against Kessler who was undefeated world champ at the time I think.

He gets underrated because of the way he carries on, it's all to boost his PPVs, apparently he's very different off camera.