The Greatest Athlete/Sportsman of all time: Poll Added

  • Thread starter Deleted member 101472
  • Start date

Who is the greatest athlete/sportsman of all time ?

  • Total voters
    325
  • Poll closed .
spwd said:
Because he’s using equipment to play his sport, I’m not saying hockey isn’t hard because I know that it is, but someone saying that a top motorcyclist is a second tier athlete compared to hockey, rugby, cricketers and golfers for instance is a complete joke.

An ex workmate of mine used to think that they just sit on the bike, a bit like saying Hamilton just sits in his car driving around in circles :lol:
Click to expand...

I think the point people are trying to make is that the bike actually is more valuable than the driver. As in formula 1 or rally. Gretzky's stick wasn't any better than other players sticks.
 
JarleA said:
I think the point people are trying to make is that the bike actually is more valuable than the driver. As in formula 1 or rally. Gretzky's stick wasn't any better than other players sticks.
Click to expand...

Sure it was, how else do you explain him scoring 400 goals as a 10-year old, playing as a defenseman? :D
 
Zlaatan said:
Sure it was, how else do you explain him scoring 400 goals as a 10-year old, playing as a defenseman? :D
Click to expand...

Ah, my bad. What I meant to write was that his stick was a lot better than others for his entire career. ;)

One of the cooler stats in sports is "most points by brothers in the NHL". Wayne and Brent Gretzky scored a combined 2861 points. 2857 scored by Wayne, 4 by Brent. :lol:
 
spwd said:
@UnrelatedPsuedo

So what is this poll based on, athletitism, fitness, longevity? If so top sportsmen like Rossi, Chris Froome and lewis Hamilton for instance should all be there because I very much doubt any American footballer, hockey player, golfer and cricketer are anywhere close to the athletes these guys are.
It shouldn’t include anyone with any outside influences on their abilities such as bikes, cars, skates etc but it does, you need a list for each kind of discipline such as golf, cricket, hockey and tennis should be in one list. Footballers and American footballers and swimmers etc should be in another and powered disciplines in another, otherwise it’s incomparable.
If you include one, you have to include all.
Click to expand...

I don't know. Ask the person that made the list.

Rossi is the greatest bike rider that I've ever seen. If you need me to say that, I've said it.

Yet I don't quite know why you can't reconcile the fact that I place level playing field sports above skewed playing field sports. Especially when considering you're doing the exact opposite.

If it helps to calm you... I don't think that you can compare Borg to Federer as the advances in racket technology make it a different sport. However; You can compare Nadal to Federer as they have identical equipment available. That's simply never the case in motor racing.

I'd never have car/bike racers anywhere the lists of best athletes ever. Jensen Button is a far better athlete (even now) than Hamilton. He wasn't even half the driver. It just gets way too complicated. It's a different thing. You may as well compare them to the worlds best mathematicians for all the good it does.
 
Zlaatan said:
There's no logic at all in saying that a pair of skates are equal to a bike or a car, especially when the topic is athleticism. Of course a pro MotoGP or F1 driver has to be in top physical condition to be able to drive as they do but surely you can see the massive difference between sitting in a car and playing hockey when it comes to athletic ability? Riding a bike is obviously more complex than driving a car though.

I also think the main point was that the best drivers get to a point where they have better equipment than their competitors for the majority of their careers which gives them a big advantage, which obviously isn't the case in hockey, rugby, cricket or golf.
Click to expand...

You know what, im going to knock this argument in the arse right now..


Find me one of the greatest of all time players in team sport, and tell me that they all had a bunch of fecking numpties surrounding them and they did everything on their own. Somebody has to catch those balls that Brady throws, somebody has to pass the puck to Gretzky or to be on the end of a Gretzky pass and have the ability to put it in the goal, somebody has to set Jordan up. Messi is not even close to how he is for Barcelona when he plays for Argentina....

This bull shit that great drivers and riders get great cars and bikes once they hit the top? Of course they do, just like every other great sportsman gets a teams built around them usually or they move to where they can have a great team built around them. Thats how winning is done. Messi and co get better equipment and teams then the rest, its no different to a driver in a car. But atleast a player in a team sport has the opportunity to have other step up for when they fail to perform. A driver or rider fails to perform (save for mechanical issues) and they only have themselves to blame.
 
mariachi-19 said:
You know what, im going to knock this argument in the arse right now..


Find me one of the greatest of all time players in team sport, and tell me that they all had a bunch of fecking numpties surrounding them and they did everything on their own. Somebody has to catch those balls that Brady throws, somebody has to pass the puck to Gretzky or to be on the end of a Gretzky pass and have the ability to put it in the goal, somebody has to set Jordan up. Messi is not even close to how he is for Barcelona when he plays for Argentina....

This bull shit that great drivers and riders get great cars and bikes once they hit the top? Of course they do, just like every other great sportsman gets a teams built around them usually or they move to where they can have a great team built around them. Thats how winning is done. Messi and co get better equipment and teams then the rest, its no different to a driver in a car. But atleast a player in a team sport has the opportunity to have other step up for when they fail to perform. A driver or rider fails to perform (save for mechanical issues) and they only have themselves to blame.
Click to expand...

We’re not taking about winning though, so even if someone else steps up and wins the game for your team while you’re the worst player on the field you obviously don’t become a better individual athlete because of it. (some Ronaldo fans will disagree)

I do see your point though and maybe I should have worded it a bit differently, but I can find you a lot more than one example where someone is the best in the world in an inferior team.

Gretzky is one, he was better than everyone else in every single team he ever played for. He was still the best by far even when he went from one of the best teams in history in the Oilers to the Kings, who only had 3 teams behind them in the league the year before he arrived.

Connor Mcdavid has scored the most points and been voted the most outstanding player the past two years in the NHL while playing for a terrible team which finished 23rd in a 31 team league last year.

Lebron James took a piss poor Cleveland to four consecutive NBA finals, and now after he’s left they are dead last in the league.

Maradona and Napoli.

Obviously these guys weren’t surrounded by idiots who could barely stand on their own two feet, but they performed better individually than everyone else of their opponents while having significantly worse “equipment”. You could put prime Senna in this years Renault and he would be nowhere near Bottas in the standings even if he drove at 100% of his capacity and Bottas were at 90%.
If Gretzky would have played at 90% of his capacity in a mid table team and everyone in the best teams were at 100% Gretzky still would have scored the most points and lifted his team to among the best, i.e Gretzky’s team mates had a lot less impact on his performance compared to an F1 driver’s car.
 
Raoul said:
If longevity was a factor then it should be someone else. But strictly in terms of the biggest freak of an athlete it would have to be Bo.

Click to expand...


Good shout. Hated him for snubbing my home team, the Buccaneers, but when the racist owner takes himself & another racist from the team to try to win him back personally before the draft, I quickly couldn’t blame him at all. He was a total freak.
 
Muhammad Ali being so close to #1 (1 vote behind Federer and FAR ahead of 3rd place) is strange for me. I am not trying to be arrogant nor do I have an agenda but I might be the biggest boxing fan here and I have many friends that are just as researched (and some more so) than me and I can't think of one who thinks he's a top 5 all-time boxer. A lot (a majority) wouldn't have him top 10. He's great and arguably the greatest heavyweight but there isn't an argument that he's the best ever. I think the idea of who he was and what he stood for elevates him (though those people also forgive a lot of nasty and horrible things he said and did).
 
Inter Yer Nan said:
Muhammad Ali being so close to #1 (1 vote behind Federer and FAR ahead of 3rd place) is strange for me. I am not trying to be arrogant nor do I have an agenda but I might be the biggest boxing fan here and I have many friends that are just as researched (and some more so) than me and I can't think of one who thinks he's a top 5 all-time boxer. A lot (a majority) wouldn't have him top 10. He's great and arguably the greatest heavyweight but there isn't an argument that he's the best ever. I think the idea of who he was and what he stood for elevates him (though those people also forgive a lot of nasty and horrible things he said and did).
Click to expand...
Being too young to remember all but the very end of his career I've always thought purely on boxing terms he gets the number 1 postion too often from all the footage and reading I've studied over the years.

As a sportsman and entertainer there has possibly never been anyone surpassing his grip on people and I have no issue with him being in the melting pot of the best fighter discussion but there have been better from what my eyes have seen.

Someone who saw him in his early days mind I would defintely listen to their opinion.
 
Had I voted it would have been for Don Bradman. What Nadal, Djokovic and Sampras have done in tennis means more to me than what Fed has.
 
Don Bradman without a doubt. So far ahead statistically of anyone ever to have picked up a cricket bat.

Can't think of another sportsperson who is out there on their own as much as him.
 
The question is “greatest” which means the answer is Ali by a landslide.

If the question was “best”, then it’d be more of a debate.
 
Cascarino said:
What makes you say Messi?
Click to expand...

Easy: football is the biggest sport and has been so far a long time. Messi is the best football player of all time(imo). Therefore: the greatest athlete from team sports is Messi.
 
OleBoiii said:
Easy: football is the biggest sport and has been so far a long time. Messi is the best football player of all time(imo). Therefore: the greatest athlete from team sports is Messi.
Click to expand...

That’s fair enough, he wouldn’t be my choice, but then I don’t even know who would be.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.