It's an old argument, but...who are the five best sportspeople ever in your opinion?
I'll go for:
Pele
Muhammad Ali
Tiger Woods
Don Bradman
Carl Lewis
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Best sportsmen/sportswomen ever
27 votes
?
by charliepanayi
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Ricky Otto
Michael Johnson
the most awesome sportsman I've ever seen in my lifetime.
He'd make a Top 10
if I did one. Certainly one of the all-time great athletes.
I still wonder/worry if he was clean
given his consistently ridiculously amazing performances and being so "ripped".
I really hope he was
He was a hero of mine. His languid upright running style. He looked like he was jogging most of the time...
he was amazing
and obviously I give him the benefit of the doubt but this is what I hate about athletics because I can never quite trust any achievements any more
Don Bradman
is the stand-out sportsperson of all time by far. So him for best.
mine are
Tiger Woods
Michael Jordan
Muhammad Ali
Ronnie O Sullivan
Roger Federer
Babe Ruth
not sure about the ladies maybe..Venus/Serena Williams
if you want to chose a womens tennis player
surely it should be Navaratilova.
or Graf
or Bilie Jean King, or even Margaret Court. But Navratilova certainly was great.
i was about to say o sullivan
Daley Thompson
^ this
Depending on how the next couple of years go,
Federer is in with a shout.
Good shout on the Don.
*Nadal
Don Bradman
Michael Johnson
Roger Federer
Tiger Woods
Haile Gebrselassie
Lance Armstrong
Jan Zelezny
sorry, i couldn't do just 5. there are more i might be able to think of soon.
Sergei Bubka
and Jimmy Floyd Hasselbaink.
Thinking about it
Steve Redgrave would have to be well up there. There can't be many people who have dominated their sport so consistently for so long.
Also, surely Martina Navratilova over Serena or Venus?
that's what i said
about Navratilova. ;)
Maradonna
was much better than pele
not that ive ever seen either
of them play a whole game btw
so yeah i can shut the fuck up
..
"He names Johan Cruyff as his all-time favourite player, then admits he’s only seen that five-second World Cup clip of the Cruyff turn."
Ah!
The When Saturday Comes review of 'Lovejoy on Football'. Brilliant.
Can't believe I knew that.
^
agreed
I don't understand
how people can agree this on the basis of perhaps highlights of Pele at best.
yeah agreed
kind of renders this whole debate totally useless doesnt it.
unless anyone here is like 150 years old
you can do it better for individual sports
because then you can look at stats and such but for football it's all dependent on the people around you etc.
*more dependent
and there aren't such useful markers of quality unless it is goals/clean sheets or something
half baked football opinions are allowed
surely you know this ht27.
What are you trying to say?
My opinions are 1% from scientific and religious fact.
no, just because you're the founder of the football threads.
;)
I'll be totally unoriginal/unfashionable
and say Michael Schumacher, seeing as nobody else has. I really don't care what people say about having the best machinery etc, I honestly do think he's the greatest driver in the history of motorsport.
how comes
racing drivers can be considered sportsmen, and darts and snooker players can't?
they can
darts and snooker are both sports
they're not
they're really not
they are
times infinity (plus one)
How are those three in any way comparable
Motorsport generally requires a great deal of physical strength, as much as many more traditional athletic type sports. The people who try and argue it isn't a sport are stupid, really.
If F1 drivers are athletes
then so are lorry drivers.
I ran out to the road the over day
to get a parcel from the delivery guy.
I'm an Olympian!
over??
Urgh, bed time....
You're just showing your ignorance.
F1 Drivers are probably fitter and HAVE to be fitter than most athletes.
It's not a fitness test though.
Being fit combined with being able to drive a car does not make a great sportsman. There are thousands of people who fit this criteria who are not considered to be sportsmen.
Define a Sportsman
imo F1 drivers count.
You're being purposefully ridiculous
Being fit combined with [insert skill]... you could say the same about any sport.
Unless the sport is
'who's the fittest' then that is an invalid point. Fact of the matter is if you count people who drive cars competitively as a sport, then you also have to accept people who play computer games competitively as a sport, because the same things are involved; reflexes, hand/eye co-ordination and spatial awareness. Competitive driving is no more a sport than Unreal Tournament.
So??
It's the same type things "reflexes, hand/eye co-ordination" that are involved in every skill-based sport. Your argument makes no sense whatsoever. Competitive driving involves using both fitness and skills... it's every bit as much of a sport as anything else....
yes apart from
kicking a ball - football
running with a ball - rugby
hitting/throwing a ball - cricket
hitting a ball - tennis
hitting a ball - golf
These are combined with hand/eye cordination and reflexes in order to make a professional sportsman in either of these fields. F1 drivers only have reflexes and hand/eye co-ordination to master, along with how good your car is.
It's not a sport mate, it's a showcase of some fine driving skills and very clever mechanics that just happens to be competitive. Drivers can't be sportsmen by definition.
says who?
They are generally considered sportsmen.
But those things -are- about those skills
"Kicking a ball" isn't a natural skill - it's the co-ordination, vision etc that results in kicking a ball well. I'm not sure why you don't seem to understand that...
Let's cut to the core of this issue
You can't play a sport by sitting in a seat. Society at large acknowledges the difference between sport and MOTORsport by the application of the prefix. If it was a pure sport it wouldn't need to be qualified like that. I would go one step further and remove the 'sport' bit altogether and replace it with 'spectacle'. If f1 drivers are sportsmen then so are jockeys. They're not, they're riders or, if you like, pilots.
That's silly
The "motor" is there so to give a blanket term for all forms of motor-based sport. I'm not sure why you'd think otherwise. But it's clear you don't understand even though you're so clearly wrong, so whatev
"So whatever"
The defeatist mantra of someone who realises they're wrong. Nice doing battle with you.
Uhhhhhhhh
Okay.
You're odd.
You're so arrogant.
I fail to see HOW you've proved you're right.
It's not a case of proving i'm right
I know i'm right. I tried to show you people the truth. You're too cossetted in your world of constructors championships and Lewis Hamiltons to achieve awareness. I failed to convice you with my argument. That's fine, we can't all agree with each other. However this doesn't make me wrong.
You're an idiot.
not because you belive F1 isn't a sport.
That's an opinion.
You're an idiot because you believe you've 'won' this argument, by saying 'I know i'm right'
There was never an argument
I tried to show you the truth. You couldn't see it. So i stopped. I'm nothing if not energy efficient.
I don't care what you think
you seem like an idiot.
You can't argue properly.
and you have a picture of Harold Shipman as your profile pic.
You probably are an idiot.
You don't know how i argue
because we haven't had an argument.
Also, for someone who doesn't care what i think, you keep coming back for more.
(I think he likes me)
also
I don't watch Formula one.
at most I have a passing awareness of it. I know who won last seasons championship.
I have no idea who is leading this one.
The Olympics = Sports
Horse events are in the olympics.
I fail to see a substantive difference...
I wish Senna had lived longer
I think him and Schumacher would have had a number of epic battles.
the Spain midfielder?
*aims gun*
i almost said the Spanish midfielder
then realsied i'd be setting myself up for pedantic comments of "but he's Brazilian"
me
Maradona
Pele
Bradman
Mario Lemieux
and he wasn't the best boxer ever
but Ali.
I think Ali
was a case of being someone who was bigger and better than sport.
Lemieux over Gretsky?
yeah
more talented, AND would have broken every record if he hadn't been forced out for 5 seasons.
..
1. Geoff Boycott
2. Geoff Boycott
3. Geoff Boycott
4. Geoff Boycott
5. Geoff Boycott
michael johnson is the right answer
well done hendo
^5
cheers.
to watch,
he is like no other sportsperson i have ever seen.
effortless
Eddie Merckx.
He won all three Jerseys in his first Tour de France. I'd say thats pretty good.
No support for these choices?
Haile Gebrselassie
Lance Armstrong
Jan Zelezny
;(
this guy?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe
fuck off
it's blatently.
Ricky 'motherfuckin' Otto
CTRL+F+KRIS AKABUSI
Did I ever tell you
about the time my Mum was stood behind Kriss Akabusi in the queue in the Fareham branch of the Nationwide Anglia? He withdrew some money then she withdrew some money. The End.
Gianfranco Zola!
^This man is an angel!
A real lif angel. Zola not TheSoundofBastards. He is the most universally loved man ever. Unlike Mandela he has never been accused of terrorism and unlike Ghandi, he lives.
I'm pretty angelic
though.
Micheal Jordan
he ruled at basketball was a huge superstar decided he wanted to play baseball sucked came back to bball and won yet more champoinships. Plus he is in space jam...
space jam!
hehe
ace film :)
Robbie Fowler
no question
Ric Flair
WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
How about
Christophe Dugarry, anyone?
Lilian Laslandes?
mine!
in no order. and only ones i've seen plenty of
michael johnson
ronnie o'sullivan
roger federer
tiger woods
fat ronaldo
although maybe zidane over fat ronaldo. and maybe dave challinor over them all.
and formula one isn't a sport, because the mechanics of the car play too big a part in it. if everyone had the same cars then maybe...
but y'know being a sport doesn't really matter...
stuff that
actually. shane warne ftw.