Big Daddy
Greatest British Sportsman/woman
- Thread starter Sweet Square
- Start date
Daley Thompson?
No David Beckham?
Is this individualists only?
Boxing - Lennox Lewis
Formula One - Lewis Hamilton
Football - Bobby Charlton
Tennis - Andy Murray
Snooker - Stephen Hendry
Athletics - Mo Farah
Cycling - Chris Froome
Formula One - Lewis Hamilton
Football - Bobby Charlton
Tennis - Andy Murray
Snooker - Stephen Hendry
Athletics - Mo Farah
Cycling - Chris Froome
Difficult to pick just one...
John Conteh
Ben Ainslie
Lester Piggott
Daley Thompson
Ronnie O’sullivan
John Conteh
Ben Ainslie
Lester Piggott
Daley Thompson
Ronnie O’sullivan
Personally I'd go with Steve Redgrave. Gold medals in 5 different Olympics. He is the only man to have ever achieved that feat in an endurance sport. To stay at that level physically and mentally for so long is evidently very rare.
No doubt but my point was that the guys I mentioned you literally cannot argue against.
It's hard to argue for someone like Hamilton though given he's clearly got the best car on the grid. Switch him with, for talking sake, Verstappen, and he would've been world champion this year. F1's always been like that. Hamilton couldn't get near Vettel for 4 years at the start of the decade.
But you mentioned Murray? It's very easy to argue against him being the greatest British sportsman ever.
In no order for me;
Proper Sports:
Murray
Redgrave
Hoy
Jess Ennis
Ellen MacArthur (Most boring sport ever but my god she's tough)
Other sports (Not as physical / other factors / British islands dominate)
Ronnie O Sullivan
Hamilton
Lennox Lewis
Phil Taylor
Flintoff ??? Not a cricket fan
Feel bad putting Lennox in the second category but I just feel like boxing is a sport brits have always dominated? Maybe being too harsh. I love snooker and Ronnie but just can't compare him to the people in the top list.
Proper Sports:
Murray
Redgrave
Hoy
Jess Ennis
Ellen MacArthur (Most boring sport ever but my god she's tough)
Other sports (Not as physical / other factors / British islands dominate)
Ronnie O Sullivan
Hamilton
Lennox Lewis
Phil Taylor
Flintoff ??? Not a cricket fan
Feel bad putting Lennox in the second category but I just feel like boxing is a sport brits have always dominated? Maybe being too harsh. I love snooker and Ronnie but just can't compare him to the people in the top list.
Definitely not. Britain is a top boxing nation but the US is way off in front as the greatest boxing nation.
Maybe I didn't phrase that right. Not dominated as such, but rather like cricket, snooker, darts and rugby. I don't really see them as global sports. A few nations are mad for them but many aren't really competitive. Still a fantastic achievement though.
Jzuz, they are not even sportsmen ;-)
It is pretty gloal in fairness.
Countries with significant boxing scenes
USA
UK
Mexico
Germany
Japan
Russia
Ukraine
Kazakhstan
Cuba
Ireland
Argentina
Thailand
Puerto Rico
A lot of the smaller weight divisions are dominated by fighters from Thailand, Japan, The Phillipines etc but we don't here of them very much in the UK because we have so few fighters in those classes.
Sorry I like Murray but he isn`t even top 5 all time in his sport and many won`t put him top 10. Don`t see how he can be the Greatest British Sportsmen for that, has to be someone who has been utter dominant.
Froome and Farah are probably reasonable shouts, although both on the juice. And especially Farah really profited from a weak era.
Don`t you have some all time greats in one of those sports only the British empire countries bother? Cricket, rugby or snooker?
Froome and Farah are probably reasonable shouts, although both on the juice. And especially Farah really profited from a weak era.
Don`t you have some all time greats in one of those sports only the British empire countries bother? Cricket, rugby or snooker?
Jack Hobbs would be the greatest cricketer to have come out of England.
Fair enough. I don't really follow cricket. haha
Not in the post I was referring to I didn't. The post I'm talking about was in reply to someone asking if Britain have ever had someone that is the indisputable number 1 in their field and the names I mentioned were Phil Taylor, Stephen Hendry and Ronnie O'Sullivan.
Murray has never been the best in tennis, of course, but despite that he still has a stronger argument than Hamilton does IMO. Hamilton is reliant on engineering advantages over the rest and that alone is too much for me to be able to look past.
Steve Redgrave must be in with a shout?
I wouldn't say Murray for the reasons you've described. He was never the best player of his era, let alone best of all time. The actual best will most likely be an Olympic athlete who is/was actually the best at the sport. Not sure who that'd be because I don't really follow the Olympics anymore
That's a bit unfair. You need to apply context and factor in that Murray is playing in an era of tennis in which the 3 greatest male players of all time are all playing at the same time. That is such a rare phenomenon and I don't know if there's any other sport where you could make a claim like that? So when you factor that in I think his career has been remarkable.
I'm not a huge cricket fan but I think the widely accepted GOAT cricketer is Australian and I know next to nothing about rugby but I'd be surprised if the GOAT there wasn't from NZ or Aus too. Like I said before, snooker and darts are the two that come to mind right away when you're looking for an undisputed GOAT that is British but they're as much pub games as they are legitimate sports, IMO.
Djokovic could never be the GOAT Serbian athlete under this criteria.
Yeah I was gonna say and also an opportunity to tell my mates Steve Redgrave story again...
He used to work in Chamonix picking up groups from the airport on a ski'ing/snowboarding holiday. So Sir Steven and about 3 others were in a small group and my mate pretends to not know who he is and asks "Steven Redgrave?" when doing the head count. He raised his hand and was apparently not impressed that he wasn't recognised. Such a dick move
He most certainly could.
So did Schumacher... that's the feature of that sport. Best drivers get best cars and it's hard to count that against them unless you disqualify races as a sport altogether.
Of course he could, he's got as good a claim for GOAT status as Federer and Nadal these days, but we'll only be able to properly judge them once all their careers are finished.
Also, Olympic medals aren't nearly as important in tennis as they are in other sports. They're secondary to Grand Slams and "nice to haves", just like in cycling, football, basketball, ...
Beefy, Biscuit Legs and the Rocket.
Paucity of women on these lists
Who is there?
Paula Radcliffe (Olympic meltdowns count against her)
Ellen McArthur (very niche sport)
Kelly Holmes?
Perhaps Victorian Pendleton, couple of Olympic golds on the bike before becoming a competitive jockey in retirement.
edit:
Notice that Paula Radcliffe and Sally Gunnell are the only two British females to win the World Athlete of the Year award.
Gunnell's acheivements are:
She is the only female British athlete to have won Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles, and was the first female 400 metres hurdler in history to win the Olympic and World titles and break the world record. Her former world record time of 52.74 secs in 1993, still ranks in the top 10
Who is there?
Paula Radcliffe (Olympic meltdowns count against her)
Ellen McArthur (very niche sport)
Kelly Holmes?
Perhaps Victorian Pendleton, couple of Olympic golds on the bike before becoming a competitive jockey in retirement.
edit:
Notice that Paula Radcliffe and Sally Gunnell are the only two British females to win the World Athlete of the Year award.
Gunnell's acheivements are:
She is the only female British athlete to have won Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth titles, and was the first female 400 metres hurdler in history to win the Olympic and World titles and break the world record. Her former world record time of 52.74 secs in 1993, still ranks in the top 10
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What about the caber toss?
Could call Geoff Capes and Eddie Hall as a couple of names to throw into the ring.
No he doesn't.
I don't think anyone outside of Serbia actually considers Djokovic to be the GOAT. I've certainly never seen anyone claim it.
There’s a lot of people in the GOAT tennis saying it and it’s a valid claim if he overtakes Federer.
I'm impressed.
Why is it?
And best drivers don't always get the best cars. Fernando Alonso's cars for large spells of his career were absolute trash even though the general consensus was he was the best driver on the grid. There's way too much politics and nepotism involved in F1. Whoever is bringing in the most amount of money (Perez) or whoever is the son of a rich owner (Stroll) will always get a seat ahead of better drivers.
Well until that happens which isn't a guarantee it's unfair to state he's got as good a claim as Federer. Nadal has as many as Federer and his claim isn't even as good as Fed's.
Edit: and there's a lot of people saying Djokovic is the GOAT? I've genuinely never seen anyone say it. Even when you google it and read all the websites that publish their own GOAT lists he generally comes in 3rd and Federer comes in 1st.
Joker was the best tennis player in the world for large portions of his prime, the same can’t be said for Murray. The argument holds no water.
If you dissect it down into certain periods rather than the broader picture then yes, Djokovic was the best in the world for a spell (despite being an inferior player to other active players), but thing is, if you do that, then by definition you also must say that it applies to Murray too given he was number 1 in the world for a spell. So which is it?
Of course it might not be "fair" but "What Ifs" never hold much weight in these discussions. His career is remarkable, but like I said, we`re talking about the Greatest of all British athletes and he is not even top 5 in his own sport. I have no regards for Formular 1 but even I can see that Hamilton has a far better claim, so has Froome. And yes, both had, relatively speaking, far better circumstances than Murray for their success but their dominance is still far far bigger.
What? That`s delusional, there a quite a few who`ve put him up there already. You can count me in as someone outside of Serbia. He`s quite a moron but despite being a couple of Slams behind the other two, he has a better H2H, most ATP1000 titles and greater clay achievements then Federer.
He has a strong case.
Beat Federer and Nadal at their favourite slams.
Better head to head against Fed and Nadal
Most master series titles. Believe it or not tennis doesn’t revolve just around Slams.
6th years ended as world number 1 which is a record tied to Sampras.
Will surpass Federer for most amount of weeks at number 1 ranking.
He has had to deal with Nadal and Murray in their prime as well as Federer. Federers most slams came before 2010 where Djokovic and Murray were still learning and it was only Nadal challenging him on other surfaces from 2007. Before that his challengers were Hewitt, Roddick and Gonzalez.
All three have good cases. So saying Djokovic doesn’t have a leg to stand on is ludicrous.
@Kevin and @wr8_utd what you think?
Your logic is flawed. You don't need to be in the top 5 in your sport to be the best athlete from your own country. You trying to tell me George Best isn't the GOAT athlete from Northern Ireland?
I may be wrong, but those cases usually happen in teams other than Mercedes and Ferrari, no? Those, who have to prioritise funding over podiums (not that Ferrari had won much lately). Alonso is a good example against my point, but he still ended up at Ferrari eventually, didn't he?