With the Olympics upon us and the Michael Phelps dominance in our brain, Donkey and I were trying to figure out who is the greatest individual athlete of all time, or at least who should be in the conversation. Not team athletes, just individuals. It's not an easy thing to do, but I have narrowed down my top 5... I think....
1. Michael Phelps- Set his first world record at age 15, has 14 Gold medals total and a record 8 in this Olympics. Has 16 Olympic medals total and will probably swim in the next Olympics as well.
2. Cael Sanderson-4 time NCAA champion wrestler at Iowa State. Undefeated in his collegiate career. 4 time NCAA outstanding wrestler. Olympic Gold medalist. Simply put, the most dominant wrestler in history.
3. Roger Federer- Ranked #1 in the world longer than anyone else in the history of the sport
4. Muhammad Ali- Simply the greatest heavy weight boxer in history(my opinion) and missed the prime of his career for political reasons.
5. Sam Snead- probably will be replaced by Tiger eventually, but as of now i think you have to give it to the all time leader in wins, and if not then you have to go with Nicklaus who's the all time leader in Major victories.
Others to consider: Mark Spitz, Tiger Woods, Carl Lewis,Eric Heiden,Lance Armstrong,Dave Scott(ironman), Dan Gable.
Getlive submitted a good one in the comments section- Kelly Slater 8 time world champion surfer......
Thoughts?
16 comments:
Well, you seem to have forgotten about Mikal Augeouskis, the Lithuanian Caber Tosser. Naturally, caber tossing is a Celtic sport but Luski found his way over to Shetland and began his 18 year reign in caber tossing. He is 20 time world champion and 15 time All United Kindom Chancelor. He has certainly set his place among the greatest individual athletes of all time.
interesting, but since that sport is so obscure, can we really say that he is a "world champion"? How many countries actually compete in Caber tosssing? Are there weight classes? I don't think we can consider that sport in the argument because of lack of competition.
Fair enough. How about Kelly Slater? 8 time surfing World Champ?
Good one. But i thought one of the Irons brotheres (Jeremy?) passed him up? No?
oops maybe not. I just looked it up and it's Andy Irons and he only has 3 championships.
Kelly Slater is the man. I wouldn't put him in my top 5 only because his competition isn't as prolific as that of a golfer or a swimmer, but if were just talking athletic ability he would be right near the top in my book.
So I guess we need to define the eligible sports.
I just think it needs to be something that a good portion of the world participates in.
For example, i realize that swimming is not really something that is available to everyone in ever socio-economic class, but most of the world puts a team in the Olympics, so it has that mass appeal. Surfing is a sick sport, but it can only be practiced by people who are geographically advantaged enough to live near some good waves. I mean how many surfers come from the east coast of the U.S.? Not many. How many are from Europe? Again not too many. I think surfers are sick athletes but i just don't know if the sport is widespread enough.
Then again, i'm not surfing expert so maybe i'm wrong.
Ok first of all you can go fuck yourself with Sam Snead. Great golfer, sure. But one of the greatest athletes I dont fucking think so. As a general rule if you can wear tweed and knickers in your sport, you are disqualified from this list.
Secondly you can go fuck yourself with Cassius Clay (Momma gonna call him Clay, Im a call him Clay). He just doesnt have the numbers. While I know its the popular pick and the politically correct pick he holds no boxing records. No fastest ko, no most kos, no most title defenses, nothing. Was he a great boxer sure. A great entertainer, of course. But the fact is he didnt compete in his prime and it hurt him. Would you put Roy Hobbs on this list?
Cael Sanderson??? Sorry i dont watch gay porn, never heard of him.
I agree that Snead wasn't an "athlete" in the purest sense of the word, but i think the spirit of the discussion was not just striclty physical.
If that was the case then we couldn't compare athletes of different era's.
Also, show some respect for Cael Sanderson. He can kick the shit out of everyone else on the list including Ali!
And finally, i could be mistaken but i believe Ali has the record for most successful title defenses in a career by a heavyweight and that was back when boxing was big so that's pretty impressive.
Jim Thorpe.
It should be noted that yes you were mistaken, Joe Louis holds the record with 25 consecutive title defenses followed by Larry Holmes with 20. Speaking of Holmes it should also be noted that he kicked the shit out of Ali.
Im gonna throw this guys name out there although not really in organized sports but still his accomplishent is nothing short of amazing.
Göran Kropp
The guy rode his bicycle from his home in Sweden 8000 miles to Mt Everest then soloed the climb without oxygen or a guide.
His chick Renata Chlumska aint too shabby either. She circumnavigated the continental USA by kayak and bicycle.
Goran also shot and killed a polar bear which while not being a sporting accomplishment is pretty frickin cool in my book.
I still remember that holmes ali fight.
Disgusting.
Ali was old and already jerked up.
I always thought holmes got no respect for being the great champion that he was but that fight should never have happened.
OK, Phelps wins for now.....
Jesse Owens. Yankee Stadium closes this weekend for Boston fans, what I wouldn't give to be hired as a construction assistant on the demolition job, find Ted Williams' dental floss and Tris Speaker's jockstrap buried under concrete somehwere.
Eckersley of HOF on Bosox pregame just said and I quote: "I am glad to see it go."
Mets and Phillies it makes no difference which one makes the playoffs, outside the city.
Later
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