The Greatest Athlete/Sportsman of all time: Poll Added

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Who is the greatest athlete/sportsman of all time ?

  • Total voters
    325
  • Poll closed .
I think you can cut away Maradona away immediately when discussing great athletes. He was a great footballer but he wasn't much of an athlete. Injuries and doping were a big part of his career. Babe Ruth wasn't even an athlete.

Guðjón Valur Sigurðsson (handballer) is an incredible athlete. Still playing at top level for club and country and he's about to turn 39. Holds the record for most goals at international level.
 
Snow said:
I think you can cut away Maradona away immediately when discussing great athletes. He was a great footballer but he wasn't much of an athlete. Injuries and doping were a big part of his career. Babe Ruth wasn't even an athlete.

Guðjón Valur Sigurðsson (handballer) is an incredible athlete. Still playing at top level for club and country and he's about to turn 39. Holds the record for most goals at international level.
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In that case, I won't have any problem mentioning Daniel Narcisse, Nikola Karabatic, Thierry Omeyer, Jackson Richardson, Ivano Balic or Mikkel Hansen. But seriously Karabatic is up there with the absolute best.
 
Jahangir Kahn for Squash. Dude won 555 matches on the bounce.

Aleksandr Karelin for wrestling. 13 years unbeaten. Overall record 887 - 2
 
Redplane said:
I'm intrigued by your omission of Schumacher from the F1 listing.
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Very talented driver, dominated, but never truly got to see him pushed by an outstanding teammate. I find him hard to rank for that reason. There's a chance he's better than those I losted, but by the time he had a reasonably competitive teammate he was old and basically semi-retired.
 
athlete


NOUN
  • 1A person who is proficient in sports and other forms of physical exercise.

    ‘he had the broad-shouldered build of a natural athlete’
    1. 1.1British A person who takes part in competitive track and field events (athletics).
Origin
Late Middle English: from Latin athleta, from Greek athlētēs, from athlein ‘compete for a prize’, from athlon ‘prize’.


It's Tiger Woods guys
 
Raoul said:
I’ll make it. What are the names ?
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Thank you. Decided to make it a rule that they have to be retired (except woods and federer, and mainly to avoid another Messi ronaldo debate)

Bo Jackson
Michael Jordan
Muhammad Ali
Wayne Gretzky
Michael Phelps
Usain Bolt
Michael Schumacher
Pele
Roger Federer
Jim Thorpe
Tiger Woods
 
Moby said:
The poll is flawed because team sports and individual sports are incomparable.
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You can use enough different metrics to gauge an overall #1. Legacy, peak level, distance from rivals etc etc.
 
I'm pretty sure the boxing enthusiasts here told me that Ali is not considered the greatest boxer of all time. No idea why he's on that list.
 
Arbitrium said:
You can use enough different metrics to gauge an overall #1. Legacy, peak level, distance from rivals etc etc.
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One thing to consider is that some may not consider the greatest athlete to be the greatest sportsman. For me, Bo Jackson is the greatest athlete but Federer is the greatest sportsman due to his longevity at a very high level. They are quite different in terms of sheer athleticism and excellence in career longevity imo
 
amolbhatia50k said:
I'm pretty sure the boxing enthusiasts here told me that Ali is not considered the greatest boxer of all time. No idea why he's on that list.
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With Ali you have to factor in his legacy. Sugar ray Robinson was a better fighter, but Ali is by far the biggest name in the history of the sport.
 
Im going for Bolt in that list.

I used to think Schumacher but really unless you're loaded its hard to get into motorsport to test your mettle. Likewise I could be the world's best ice hockey player but I'll never know because I've never played it. American football, baseball and many other sports have the same problem.

Every person on the planet has run as fast as they can at some point in their lives, and Bolt emerged utterly dominant in a way never really seen before.
 
Schumacher shouldn't be up there over Senna/Prost at the very least, never mind Alonso or Hamilton.
 
Raoul said:
One thing to consider is that some may not consider the greatest athlete to be the greatest sportsman. For me, Bo Jackson is the greatest athlete but Federer is the greatest sportsman due to his longevity at a very high level. They are quite different in terms of sheer athleticism and excellence in career longevity imo
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Another thing is this is a Euro centric forum.

How many people on here have seen Bo Jackson in his prime or even heard of Jim Thorpe before I brought him up?

Both are multi-sport professional athletes, Thorpe even added Olympic gold medals to his resume... yet they’ve got 1 vote between the two of them.
 
Carolina Red said:
Another thing is this is a Euro centric forum.

How many people on here have seen Bo Jackson in his prime or even heard of Jim Thorpe before I brought him up?

Both are multi-sport professional athletes, Thorpe even added Olympic gold medals to his resume... yet they’ve got 1 vote between the two of them.
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Yeah true. I'm sure some might want a Cricketer or someone representing a more east centric sport in there as well.

(We can still add people, just let me know).
 
Raoul said:
Yeah true. I'm sure some might want a Cricketer or someone representing a more east centric sport in there as well.

(We can still add people, just let me know).
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The only other person I put on the same level of athlete as Bo Jackson and Jim Thorpe is Deion Sanders.
 
No, but seriously guys, Karabatic has won 55 titles being the best player in every team he played for, at least put his name in the damn poll.
 
altodevil86 said:
Schumacher shouldn't be up there over Senna/Prost at the very least, never mind Alonso or Hamilton.
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Each to their own but Schumacher is comfortably better and more well known than Alonso and Hamilton.
 
Arbitrium said:
If he’s only arguably the best player ever in a sport no one really cares about then he doesn’t belong anywhere near this poll.
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Well, in that case you can scratch almost every name in that list.
 
Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world. Does that make him a better athlete than the best long-distance runner in the world? People have a very american-centric definition of athlete

And if we're considering legacy than it's Ali, it's not even debatable. He's the most famous athlete by far, his impact is on completely different level to anyone else. He's the guy the best modern athletes grew up idolizing
 
giorno said:
Usain Bolt is the fastest man in the world. Does that make him a better athlete than the best long-distance runner in the world? People have a very american-centric definition of athlete

And if we're considering legacy than it's Ali, it's not even debatable. He's the most famous athlete by far, his impact is on completely different level to anyone else. He's the guy the best modern athletes grew up idolizing
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No he should probably come off the list for some handball player.
 
Arbitrium said:
Each to their own but Schumacher is comfortably better and more well known than Alonso and Hamilton.
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Well-known yes, but nowhere close to being comfortably better than either of them.
 
I mean, imagine asking this question to the guys on that poll. What do you think they'd answer?

All of them are great, but only was The Greatest :cool:
 
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