[Closed] who would you vote greatest sportsperson in history?

Ali? Thomson? Hoy?

Lance Armstrong

Bob Nudd

Nah Ivan Marks if were talking fishermen

Any others it would have to be Ali

IOM TT riders, but Joey Dunlop and John McGuiness stand out...

Mohammed Ali was the greatest,. He must of been because he said so often enough 😉

Ali. End of.

Geoff Boycott. He told me himself.

Rachel

Sir Steve Redgrave. Olympian of the very highest order who overcame severe illness to do what he did. Proper hero material.

Kelly Slater 11x world surfing champion

David Beckham

Sparkyspice has it. Recognition for the multiple success in dangerous sport.

Then you get a **** and his dangerous football.

Either Lance or Schu. Both excelled at cheating.

Why Ali?

Seb Coe, he showed epic determination and single mindedness in order to succeed on the track, he took this mentality into the workplace and succeeded in giving the world the Olympics and the legacy of countless youngsters putting down the Wii/PS3/X-Box and picking up a piece of sports kit.

Carlton Cole

Don Bradman.

Ali for a myriad of reasons. Followed by Pele, Bradman, Senna & Bolt

Someone please explain to me why Ali is always considered 'The Greatest', OK I agree that he was very good in his time and at his chosen sport, but thinking about this I'm not sold... Being very good at beating a man into submission in a sport that draws a small number of participants (in comparison to others) is not enough in my mind.

Take Pele or Maradona for example, I would estimate (without bothering to look up the figures) that football is one of the most participated sports on the planet, as such to be considered by players and fans alike as the 'best' surely makes this a much, much harder feat to achieve.

Then there's the extreme end of sports such as Surfing, Skiing, Snowboarding, MTB etc... some of which don't even have notable competitions by which to pitch one against the other, anyone who regularly throws a 360 barrel roll of a 100ft cliff and lands it is massively high in my book. OK, so these sports also have lower participation but the things these people do are simply out of this world. Someone mentioned Kelly Slater, have to admit that's a pretty good shout.

Ali, no... doesn't get my vote good as he was. Pele, probably because he was astonishingly good in an age of superb players or someone like Seth Morrison (extreme Skier) who is just unbelievably good and, considering what he does, should be dead a long time but continues to Ski impossible lines...

Seems I have too much time on my hands... Got to love Christmas haven't you 😉

Quick mention for Seve.

EDIT: A surfer? My arse. 😆

Senna, Robbie Naish or Dougie Lampkin.

Sugar Ray Robinson

Tony hawk

If this is to be judged on the person who made you jump and shout and scream the most then for me it is this man.

[img] [/img]

Who will mean nothing to you unless you followed Salford or Halifax.

Tazio Nuvolari.
Ayrton Senna.
John Surtees.
Juan Fangio.
Or maybe Sebastian Loeb or (as much as I hate to say it) Michael Schumacher. You could make a good case for any of them.
.
To venture away from motorsport how about Roger Bannister or W G Grace?

Ask Zinadine Zidane. He'll tell you....
[img] [/img]... Paul Scholes

(and who am I to disagree)

It always makes me smile when somebody claims Ali as the greatest.

Ali was a very good boxer. Certainly not the best though. He lost decisions and won gift decisions against guys of his era.
Ali was as big a racist as you could meet. He used racism against people who had previously given him help.
Ali was a hypocrite. His stance against the Vietnam war was more about lost revenue if he got drafted and was unable to box.

Sugar Ray Robinson is today most often regarded as the best boxer ever. Those boxing fans of an older generation would say Joe Louis was the greatest ... before him Dempsey, Jeffries and Sullivan would have been named.

Ali is/was never the greatest. Only hype & ignorance could ever claim different.

I don't get the Ali thing either...
*puts kettle on and hands out can openers for the worms I bought in the Sales*
He was World champion on more than one occasion and regained his title years after he first got it. The thriller in Manilla and the Rumble in the Jungle we're awesome bouts, but surely Redgrave for having been at the top of his sport for so long is an amazing feat even if it is a 'minority sport'.
Had Redgrave been black and from Harlem and he'd changed his religion to Jedi halfway through his career, would it of made his achievements any greater?
I'm all for minority sports too, (having played water polo in a former life), but to rise to the top is obviously easier because you are competing against less adversaries...
A vote for Stephen Hendry?
Federer, Fangio, Messi, Ingrid Christianson, Tiger, Tendulkar, all great and gifted. My vote for the TT riders was purely because I have no idea how they have the balls to do what they do. Pure bravery.

I'd like to see Ali face a Paul Scholes tackle.

edit: not now, obviously - that would just be cruel.

You mean a Scholes foul, he never made a tackle in his life.

Statistically there are two sportsman who stand out when compared to everyone else who has played the same sports before or since. By stand out I mean at least a standard deviation ahead of the best other sports people before or since.

They are Don Bradman and Wayne Gretsky

Ashley Cole

[img]professionalathletehomes.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/michael_jordan-1166.jpg[/img]

This Guy, Bjorn Dunkerbeck (Windsurfer)
"(PWA) Overall World Championships a record twelve times"
"Overall World Champion (1988–1999)
Race World Champion (1988–1999) and 2011
Wave World Champion (1990, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 1999, 2001)
Freestyle World Champion (1998)
Speed World Champion (1994)"
[img] [/img]

Then
Steffi Graf

Graf was ranked World No. 1 by the Women's Tennis Association (WTA) for a record 377 total weeks—the longest period for which any player, male or female, has held the number-one ranking since the WTA and the Association of Tennis Professionals began issuing rankings.
[img] [/img]

I think possibly no other player has dominated a team or majority sport and been so far ahead in terms of statistics that Bradman would be a good contender.

Nicklaus in golf maybe.

Redgrave has a case.....

Philippe Senderos.

lol

Elbry Sandland

A lot of British people mentioned I see, you bunch of nasty patriotic jingoistic bastards.

My vote goes to Daley Thompson.

^^hardly any British people achieve as much as Foreigners^^*

*this is true

No it isn't.

Leaving aside Tom B's rather excellent suggestion of Elbry Sandland, I would say that is an impossible and futile activity trying to name the "greatest sportsperson" in history.

Different skills, physical and mental requirements and width of participation mean that there is no way of comparing. Add to that the constant evolution and improvement of the sports and competitors and it becomes impossible.

My vote goes for Elbry as he is truly in a field of his own.

Usain Bolt or Phil Taylor

Ricky Car Michael, he redefined how to ride a motocross bike.

Michael Phelps maybe?

Leonidas of Rhodes

HW Tilman

Carl Lewis or Joss Naylor.

Phidippides.

No beer - damn beat me to Joss! So +1

Is Phidippides related to Philippides in some way? 😉

Your'e never gonna work out who the greatest ever is. Too many sports to take in & lots of sportsmen & women who are/have excelled at their particular sport.

But for my penneth...

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[url= http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimmygrainger/6340138234/ ]HALL OF FAME[/url] by [url= http://www.flickr.com/people/jimmygrainger/ ]jimmyg352[/url], on Flickr

Wayne Gretzky isn't called 'The Great One' for nothing.

Jim Thorpe. Won the 1912 Olympic Pentathlon and Decathlon and was a good enough all rounder to play professional American football, baseball, and basketball.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe

the man was a machine on a bike

The man was (the best drugs taking) machine on a bike

runs for cover

@thm- both spellings are apparently valid. Pedant. 🙂

Ali. Maybe you have to be "of an age" but it was the way he transcended his sport.

See those who think Ali shouldn't be on the podium because of this and that are forgetting something very important. Ali completely transcended sport. Actually he transcended politics and religion too. There isn't another compatible athlete that has ever lived. And he was loved and hated in equal measures across the globe but no-one ever doubted his bravery and courage and everybody knew his name. Ali is the greatest, not for his titles or his achievements in boxing. And really that says it all.

So they are - at least three spellings I can see now! I stand corrected - apologies for failed pedantry!!

You always learn something on STW.

but it was the way he transcended his sport

And this for me is why many of the above suggestions are bollocks.

And why Ali, Pele, Seve, Senna are fair suggestions.

Got to be Lance 7 TDF wins, even on drugs thats got to be hard...he's also managed to clean the sport up....chapeau

Or Messi.....

Elbry transcends most common thoughts on mtbing.

Another vote for Bob Nudd

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or perhaps Phil Taylor

[img] [/img]

but it was the way he transcended his sport

[img] [/img]

but it was the way he transcended his sport

Statistically there are two sportsman who stand out when compared to everyone else who has played the same sports before or since. By stand out I mean at least a standard deviation ahead of the best other sports people before or since.

They are Don Bradman and Wayne Gretsky

Yes, but Bradman couldn't bowl. Garry Sobers could - quick swing, wrist spin or finger spin - world record holder for highest score for over 30 years and one of the best close catchers the game has known. And he did a fair amount of it whilst knocking back the rum and cokes of an evening. Add in a scratch golf handicap left handed and playing off of 4 (I think) right-handed, and you have one hell of a sportsman.

We need 2 catagories...games and sport.

Ed Moses has to be on the list.

We need 2 categories...games and sport.

which does cricket fall into...?
and football..?

Joe Calzaghe was a better pound for pound fighter than Mo-hammered "I am the veinest" Ali, imo. So Joe Calzaghe.

Also the one and only Pele must get a vote for his effortless displays of skills and style on the world-stage.

Ali - By the simple expedient of asking 6 women that happen to be in my house currently, it's just not quantifiable but ask 100 people and I reckon Ali wins every time.

ali is a very lazy answer though isn't it..?

we've all been conditioned by the media to consider ali 'the greatest'
but what is it exactly that makes him so..?

we've all been conditioned by the media to consider ali 'the greatest'

That's your answer right there!

I'll second the HW Tilman.

We need 2 categories...games and sport.

which does cricket fall into...?
and football..?

yunki - Member

ali is a very lazy answer though isn't it..?

we've all been conditioned by the media to consider ali 'the greatest'
but what is it exactly that makes him so..?

Totally agree.
Ask these people why he is the greatest. And they will struggle .. and say because he transcended this - that - or whatever ... 🙄
And what they really mean is. He was hyped a great deal along time ago .. and their father repeated it to them when they were young ... and its kinda stuck ever since.
The greatest sportsman ... never.
Greatest over-hyped sportsman ... probably.

Ali is as much the greatest sportsman ever as Armstrong is the greatest cyclist ever.
The media may often say so. But that doesnt always mean its correct.

Roger Federer.

I have never seen an athlete capable of such artistry in any sport.

Had Redgrave been black and from Harlem and he'd changed his religion to Jedi halfway through his career, would it of made his achievements any greater?

The difference is between being quite good at games and being a great person - Ali was a good sportsman, but also entertaining and engaging, and a man of principle, and who was a participant in pivotal and zeitgeisty events. Redgrave is just some guy that won ribbons for moving the boats fastest. Ali was a lightning rod for the conflicts emerging out of the civil rights struggle. Redgrave is a tedious man in a boring sport.

The question is fatuous.

Roger Federer.

I have never seen an athlete capable of such artistry in any sport.

I have to agree with this. Federer in his pomp hit shots that you wouldn't thought possible.

The GOAT.

Edit: Senna also did this, Donington 93, quali at Monaco in 88 etc.

Well if Joss is getting a shout

Helene Diamantides

It's easy from 40 years later to forget how potent the forces of segregation and racism

In which case, Jesse Owens

Senna also did this, Donington 93, quali at Monaco in 88 etc