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Who is the greatest sports performer of all time?
Who is the greatest sports performer of all time?
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Replies: 82
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Michael Phelps nb
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What are you talking about Alias?
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Jesse Owens - (dominated in a sea of hostility and no PED in athletics then - did you know his real name was actually J C Owens?
For the record, his real name was actually James Cleveland Owens  |
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Alf Tupper - the Tough Of The Track
used to weld on a sat morning on overtime, have fish n chips for his dinner, then break a world record in the afternoon in the 200 metres......a boyhood hero |
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He sure would be up there along with Hot Shot Hamish
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Bo Jackson. Some of the things he could do looked inhuman.
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It's not Calais, that's for sure.
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rogerthebutler 23 Jul 16 18:08
Mmm - and Flyingbolt was the second greatest and Golden Miller the third greatest based on ratings. Imagine that eh? 200-plus years of racing and the 'greatest' three racehorses all came along at the same time? Presumably you mean Mill House. Ratings are only as old as Timeform (1948) so the '200-plus years' isn't really fair. Sprinter Sacre is actually rated 3rd all-time, but your question is still legitimate. Is it possible that the two greatest steeplechasers ever were foaled two years apart and shared a stable lad? It seems unlikely, I'll admit, but the perfomances of both, especially in handicaps, make more recent superstars such as Kauto Star and Best Mate look like ****! Both Arkle and Flyingbolt routinely demolished fields of top class horses while conceding two stones and upwards. It's neither of the horses I mention's fault that the modern racing programme means there is little incentive, nor hardly any races, to run the best in handicaps but I'll still hold it against them! It's one of the reasons why I always preferred Denman to his more talented stablemate... Which brings me back to your question. If we accept that the Timeform ratings are a load of Phil Bull, and Arkle's 212 and Flyinbolt' 210 are so preposterous that they should be ignored altogether, what are we left with? Well Timeform has Kauto Star as the highest rated staying chaser (tied with Mill House, as it happens) besides the big two. If we accept that, it wouldn't be a ludicrous argument that the two greatest steeplechasers of all-time (since we've DQ'd Arkle and Flyingbolt) came along at the same time and shared a stable. (For the record, Timeform has Desert Orchid, Burrough Hill Lad and Long Run(my arse!) rated higher than Denman.) In Summary: Arkle first, Flyingbolt second, the rest (getting lumps of weight) nowhere! |
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**** = pu$$ie$. I'm looking at you in particular, Best Mate.
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Roger De Bris 25 Jul 16 01:25
Bo Jackson. Some of the things he could do looked inhuman. Roger De Bris knows. Love me some Bo. Throw from warning track: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB9wi_zvMdM 'Time out' home run: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GSsJQ60q6JU Spiderman https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lk3l_L-VJ3w Somebody else can post that gridiron nonsense! |
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From the excellent 30 for 30 series on ESPN.
You Don't Know Bo: The Legend of Bo Jackson. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xqiYJoblzC8 |
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Excellent posts from Mikael DHaguenet,seems I'm going to have to revise my opinion.
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You'd make me blush but, WMFB, you don't know Diddley!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GPxkpjCvWI |
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So many great stories about Zatopek, his wikipedia page has a few of them. Amazing - nothing to do with his claims here - that he and his wife were born on the same day, I didn't know that.
One story that isn't mentioned on there was his stand-off with the ruling Czech communists, who had dropped another runner, whose father was a dissident, from the 1950 European Championships. Zatopek refused to take part unless the other chap, Stanilas Jungwirth, was reinstated. And reinstated he was. I used to have a book about him, some great pictures of him training in snowdrifts in working boots and in his races, sure it was some Riefenstahl-style propaganda thing really. It's hard to comprehend in this era how a man could just get up on a Saturday and decide to have a pop at the Olympic marathon when he'd never competed in one before. And win by miles. |
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Stephen Hendry.purely for his mental strenghts.
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Alan Wells
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Beryl Burton
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She set a women's record for the 12-hour time-trial which exceeded the men's record for two years.
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Cheers Mikael.
Some of the Bo highlights are unreal. Sports Science did a Worlds Greatest Athlete analysis....no guesses for who won. A superstar at baseball and NFL, and could have been a star at track too. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0KASZp_tcWA |
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The best sporting moments I have seen are; probably because I was a teenager & you seem to preserve your best memories of that time
David Hemery winning Olympic Gold in 1968 Teofilio Stevenson winning the gold medal in 1968 Brazil winning the World Cup in 1970 - watching Pele who is without doubt the best footballer ever Ali beating Foreman in 1974 Best sportsman of all time - arguably Don Bradman - nobody playing cricket will ever come close to his test record of 99.94 which is far superior to anyone else who has ever played or will ever play the game |
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Maradona - as previous poster stated, scored the greatest WC goal of all-time vs Eng in the 1986 qf, single-handedly carried both Argentina and Napoli to success.
Mohammed Ali - Outstanding in the greatest era of heavyweight boxing. As much a legend for his exploits outside the ring. Steffi Graf - the only ever tennis player to achieve the Golden Slam in 1988 - all 4 tennis Slams and Olympic Gold. Serena has now equalled her career Slams haul of 22 but people seem to forget Steffi had to retire prematurely at the age of 30 due to injury & would have won many more Slams if she had continued playing through to her mid-30s. Frankel - greatest racehorse I have ever seen in my lifetime winning 14 from 14. Trained by the great Sir Henry Cecil towards the end of his life, a special affinity between them, making his achievements on the track feel even more magical. Just a shame the story could not have continued into Frankel's 5-y-o season - I have no doubt he would have gone on to win top 12f races like the Arc. |
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Tiger Woods? There are 633 players officially rated better than him, no way the greatest.
That honour must go to The Rock, holder of 'the most electrifying move in sports entertainment', The People's Elbow. Imagine Steve Redgrave or Roger Federer making an explosive action film in their spare time. This fella is the real deal. |
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Didn't you leave after Brexit? Bullsh1t Billy.
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Don't embarrass yourself Billy. You promised to f*ck off, had an absolute shocker and are now cringeworthily still hanging around like one of Erse's more potent emissions because without Chit Chat you couldn't function and would have to interact in the real world. Go and try it, you might like it.
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Alf Tupper was middle distance never ran 200m in his life
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That's a shame because apart from having a basic grasp of maths and literacy equivalent to an eight year old you seem like a really nice guy.
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Jim Thorpe must be in contention.
He was Daley Thomson's (who must be in with a shout of being Britain's top sportsman) number 1 pick on TalkSport's Colin Murray Show last year (or the year before). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe "In a poll of sports fans conducted by ABC Sports, Thorpe was voted the Greatest Athlete of the Twentieth Century out of 15 other athletes including Muhammad Ali, Babe Ruth, Jesse Owens, Wayne Gretzky, Jack Nicklaus, and Michael Jordan" |
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*Thompson
Delay due to this bloody computer in whirring mode again. I detest the bleedin' thing. |
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Arthur Jones is the obvious answer
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Me - I'm like superman... but I don't want to let the humans
learn that I'm among them. I prefer to observe your feeble species through social media.[ This image is no longer available. ] |
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Arkle and Flyingbolt ......never raced against each other , never would have either I imagine.
Kauto Star & Denman met 4 times , each time in the Gold Cup . A lot easier to keep beating the same horses than competing the best against the best. It is far more likely that the trainer was light years ahead of his rivals in that training era. As for the greatest sportsman , I would go for Zatopek . His 3 Gold medals in 1952 in the longest races is an incredible feat. With today's technology , diet , fast tracks , money ,freedom he would have been a mega mega star. |
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sixtwosix 26 Jul 16 08:22
Arkle and Flyingbolt ......never raced against each other , never would have either I imagine. Kauto Star & Denman met 4 times , each time in the Gold Cup . A lot easier to keep beating the same horses than competing the best against the best. It is far more likely that the trainer was light years ahead of his rivals in that training era. There was no need to race against each other since there was a competitive season-long racing programme in those days where they could race against the best, give them 35lbs and more and still beat them out of sight. In those four Gold Cups, they managed to get beaten by Imperial Commander and Long Run, while winning once each of course. Timeform's ludicrous 184 rating for Long Run aside, does anybody think either of those two are among the greatest steeplechasers ever seen? Apart from you, of course. If Dreaper was so dominant, how come he never won a Grand National? His horses, at least his superstars, were obviously ahead of the handicapper. Vincent O'Brien, who had admittedly turned his attention to the flat by then, managed to win it three years in a row with different horses. That's the kind of return I'd expect from a trainer who was 'light years ahead of his rivals.' |
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Heather McKay. She lost only two matches in her entire career (in 1960 and 1962), and was unbeaten in competitive squash matches from 1962 through to 1981, when she retired from active open squash.
She won 16 consecutive British Open titles between 1962 and 1977, without losing a single set. |
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sixtwosix 26 Jul 16 08:22
As for the greatest sportsman , I would go for Zatopek . His 3 Gold medals in 1952 in the longest races is an incredible feat. With today's technology , diet , fast tracks , money ,freedom he would have been a mega mega star. Sorry, had to return to this. You use Arkle/Flyingbolt's lack of competition against them, which would be fair enough if they avoided any other horses, yet seemingly don't use the same criteria to measure Zatopek's greatness. I'm no expert on athletics but distance running, especially, seems to be dominated by Africans - every winner of the 10000m since 1980 has been African, apart from '84 winner Alberto Cova, for example. When Zatopek won in '52, he beat a field of 33. There was just one (white) African in the field. (Not a single entrant among the 45 who contested the 5000m was African - just 3 of the 66 in the marathon were African, albeit once again white South Africans.) Sound like a lack of competition to me, although maybe his training methods were simply light years ahead of his rivals. |
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his training methods were simply light years ahead of his rivals.
Of course , being in the misery and deprivation of Russian controlled Eastern Europe would have greatly aided his training. |
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Michael Jordan.
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Fenway • July 26, 2016 9:11 AM BST
Heather McKay. She lost only two matches in her entire career (in 1960 and 1962), and was unbeaten in competitive squash matches from 1962 through to 1981, when she retired from active open squash. She won 16 consecutive British Open titles between 1962 and 1977, without losing a single set. Well said, Fenway. The British Open titles were effectively the World Championships at the time. She won one of those finals 9-0,9-0,9-0 which meant that her opponent did not win a point. It would be the equivalent of Novak Djokovic winning a Grand Slam final 6-0, 6-0, 6-0. There is nobody who has been mentioned in this thread or will be mentioned in this thread who was as dominant as she was. |
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sixtwosix 26 Jul 16 09:54
Of course , being in the misery and deprivation of Russian controlled Eastern Europe would have greatly aided his training. Can't tell if sarcastic or not. Of course, being part of the Soviet bloc held back East German athletes, for example, no end. |