Greatest Athletes of All Time

Orr created the offensive defenseman position, but he was so unique, few could follow in his wake, and especially not after Gretzky came on the scene and smashed goal scoring records.

Tyson doesn't belong in the discussion

An athlete who falls to pieces after his first loss is certainly not the GOAT

Howe was a superb athlete who gets extra credit for his longevity, but what did he do on the ice that no one else had done before? He just did it much better in most ways.

Orr did it from behind the blue line and Gretzky, and players like Mike Bossey of the Islanders, ushered in an era of superb players who relied entirely on skill rather than brawn. Not everyone liked their arrival, but they (along with the Europeans) changed the sport.

I'm not going to comment on Crosby because you are obviously a fan of his.

Excellent nomination. You beat me to it.

Arguably Thorpe had a much higher hill to climb than Ali.

While we are at it, let's mention Babe Didrikson Zaharias

Although Babe Ruth was a great ball player -I would think he would be far from being the best athlete.
Someone does not have to change their sport to be the best athlete.

An athlete by definition is : a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength; a participant in a sport, exercise, or game requiring physical skill.

What you are describing to me sounds more like a superstar - those best in their sport rather than that most athletic. If you were to ask Babe Ruth to do a long distance run even in his best - I doubt he would be very successful.

The best athlete overall would have all these attributes.

Phelps is certainly the GOAT for his sport. Sports are too specialized to have one individual be the GOAT athlete. May as well pick Jenner then if that is your goal.

It's not mine though, I believe that each sport has, and will be, dominated by an individual athlete at any time. Jordan was definitely the dominating player in the NBA during his prime years. Bird and Magic before him and Chamberlain before them etc...

Choosing someone is part of the fun and then arguing the merits of that person.

Hard to argue with the choices here, but I must admit to being slightly surprised that there has been no mention of Edwin Moses. Four world records and 107 consecutive wins should, in my opinion, at least put him into the conversation.

That sums up the whole purpose of this thread.

Eddy Merckx, "The Cannibal." He won just about every bike race there was to win, and most of them he won multiple times. Nowadays, racers specialize between the single day "Classics" road races, like Paris Roubaix and Milan San Remo, or the grand national tours, e.g. Giro d'Italia and the Tour de France. Eddy was just as good in both.

Bruce Lee - Brutally Accurate

I do note that there are many, many, many athletes from the USA mentioned here, but the athletes from other countries not so much (well, with the exception of Eddie Merckx and Bruce Lee). I'm not disputing that all of the athletes put forward are legends, but it would do disservice to many other athletes worldwide if they would not be named.

For me, a great athlete is someone who, despite humble beginnings and little funding, manages to achieve great heights. Another quality they should have is a strong drive to succeed, and the dedication to not quit, despite great setbacks.

With all that in mind, I would like to mention Ethiopian Abebe Bikila. He won the Olympic Marathon in Rome in 1960... barefoot. In 1964, he successfully defended that title in Tokyo, and broke his own world Record while doing so. He did this, besides having had an appendectomy less than 40 days prior(he had surgery on september 16th, and competed in the 1964 Olympian marathon on October 21th). He became the first athlete to ever defend their title on two successive Olympian events, or so I'm led to believe.

In 1969 he became paralyzed in the lower body after a car accident, and he could never walk again. But that didn't mean he quit being an athlete: in 1970, he competed in the Stokes Mandeville games in London in both archery and table tennis, while at the same time still undergoing medical treatment in England. in 1971, he even won a sleigh riding cross country tournament in Norway. He died in 1973 from a cerebral hemorrhage.

Which is what I've done.

Phelps and other current atheletes have tremendous advantages over their fellows from time's past: Advanced training methods, vastly improved physical therapy, nutrition, copious amounts of money dedicated to their athletisim, and even drugs.

The great, but obnoxious, Mark Spitz dominated his sport, but even at his prime he wouldn't stand a chance against Phelps. Would that be a fair test? In terms of the current state of the sport perhaps but not for all time.

There's not much to discuss if you are basing the title on records alone.

In my opinion that is part of what they have to do, otherwise we are just measuring all around physical attributes in which case McG would be close to the mark with his throw-away suggestion of Bruce Jenner. (Actually Ashton Eaton, not Jenner, of the US currently holds the world's record in the event)

Ruth wasn't just a powerful fatman. He was a great pitcher when he joined the Red Sox and would have been one of the best in baseball if not for his prodigious swings. There are a lot of very strong men who can't consistently hit homeruns.

Barry Sanders
(Detroit Lions)
NFL Running Back

Barry Sanders may be the most elusive running back to ever play in the NFL.
He averaged over 1500 rushing yards per season throughout his entire 10 year career.
He also averaged 5 rushing yards per carry throughout his entire 10 year career.
Every time he touched the ball, everyone sat on the edge of their seats wondering if he was about to break a long run for a touchdown.

I don't believe that anyone has mentioned Roger Bannister. He was a medical student who trained as a middle distance runner in his spare time. In the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki, he came fourth in (I think) the 1500 meters, which is as close to a mile as makes no difference. In 1954, he became the first athlete to run a mile in under four minutes. He was still studying and working as a "junior doctor" at the time, making him a classic amateur athlete. Bannister became a neurologist and lecturer in medicine at Oxford University.

Agree on Sanders. Not just due to his athleticism but his singlemindedness when he retired from the sport “early, when the cheap-assed Lions wouldn’t pay him what he was worth.

Agree on Bannister due to his accomplishment of breaking the 4-minue-mile barrier which many medical experts thought and swore that doing so wasn’t humanly possible.

BTW, speaking of another runner who deserves recognition is Jim Ryun for achieving as a high school athlete a run of 3:55. That record stood for about 36 yrs before being broken. His further accomplishments as a college runner and Olympian. He had set the WR for 880-yd distance and lowered the mile-record to 3:51.1 were noteworthy, also.

Independent of and incidental to all this he had a 10-year-run as US Rep for state of Kansas.

Bob Beamon at the Mexico City Olympics made a superhuman Long Jump and set a world and Olympic record. It lasted for 29 years (pretty amazing) and is still the 2nd longest jump in history. It remains the Olympic record after 49 years

I ran track in HS and Ryun was one of my heroes. I saw him win the Wanamaker Mile (on the boards!) at the Mill Rose Games in NYC. I think it was 68 or 69

Always very disappointed that he didn't get an Olympic Gold.