The Best Sportsperson of All Time?

Interested in the debate...

Is it the fittest?

The most talented?

The most dominant?

The most consistent?

Saw this from Kelly Slater today and wondered how he rated when you start looking at the likes of Ali, Bradman, Jordan, Messi, Woods, Federer etc. There will be a lot of different opinions as everyone likely has a different assessment of what is important. Could Tony Hawk be in there? Would you count Schumacher?

Boxey.  #genuineathlete

Runners:

Pavo Nurmi.

Emil Zatopek

Fanny Blankers-Koen

Ed Moses

Cricketers:

Batsman: Sir Don Bradman

Bowler: Palwankar Baloo (See A corner of a Foreign Field, by Ramachandra Guha)

Sailors: - My three personal heros.

Sir Robin Knox-Johnston

Sir Peter Blake

And the greatest of them all - Franck Cammas

Tennis:

Rod Laver

Bjorn Borg

Martina Navratilova

Steffi Graf

Roger Federer

Serena Williams

Swimming:

Dawn Fraser

Micahel Phelps

Mark Spitz

Janet Evans

Atheletics (Other than running):

Jan Zelezny

Sergei Bubka

Valerie Adams

Luge:

Georg Hackl

F*ck off no Francis Drake???

You're having a laugh.

He was the best all rounder at all 5 classes: Sailing, Fighting, Piracy, Exploring and Nautical Attire.

Honorable mentions, to Frobisher, (underrated),  Morgan, Nelson, (fighting mainly), Andrew Browne Cunningham, Blackbeard, Leif Ericson. Wally Raleigh, Cook.

Slightly fixed. Possibly the absolute best book I've ever read. There's a reason he's considered one of the world's foremost historians.

Keeping the cricket theme going, I'd nominate Sir Garfield Sobers and CB Fry. Sobers is basically tied with Kallis as the best all-rounder in test history, and bowled seam-up and both types of spin. Did it all while wearing shamelessly nerdy glasses, too. Fry captained England in cricket  and was capped by England in football, played in an FA Cup final, played rugby for Oxford University, held the long-jump world record, and supposedly could perform a somersault from the floor onto a mantlepiece well into middle-age.

In sports that don't matter so much, Eddie Eagan is the only man two have won gold at both summer and winter Olympics (Boxing in 1920 and Bobsleigh in 1932), and Jim Thorpe won both the pentathlon and decathlon at the 1912 Olympics and played professional American Football, Baseball, and Basketball.

Bowls.

No it's all true.

number-crunching -

Sailing is not a sport.  It's a luxury.

Hornblower.

No contest.  Between him and Sharpe they defeated Boney and the Spanish many times over.

Out of the two Hornblower takes the honours simply because he has a sniggeringly innuendo-laden name.

Marco Polo FTW!!!

Marco had the advantage of being managed by his dad Rodi Polo

Wayne Gretzky

Mahe Drysdale surely?

Floyd Mayweather.

Jacob Oram

Ravishing Rick Rude

J82 - at Least C-Diddy tried to come up with a suggestion, (niave though it is), of a decent sailor. Polo rates high in the Exploring class, no one in sailing circles would dispute that, but at fighting or being a pirate???

Also most of his exploring was land based which is like comparing the Summer Olympics to the Winter Olympics.

By including a fictious sailor, you've besmerched the fine sport of Sailing and also insulted one of the finest English Sailors ever to sail the seven seas.

Who am I talking about?  None other than Admiral Horatio Nelsen, (or is it Nelson?), who lead our proud nation to such success at Waterloo and  Agincourt.

I mean do you guys actually know anything about Sailing or even watch the Armenian Cup???

Course I have FT, what do you take me for?

I watched it when It was K7 vs the other one.  A right ripping contest it was too old fruit.

Scott Dickson vs Dirty Dennis Watts

I bought the orange socks and took part in the black out heart campaign, including novelty red nose.

I'm a salty dog from way back me.  Yarrr!

Daily Thompson and any other Olympic winning decathlete. Having to do multiple disciplines to get the medal, rather than specialising in just one.

Addendum to Sir Francis Drake, didn't he put his coat in a puddle so that tghe queen wouldn't get her feet wet and that's how he got the knighthood?

I've got no idea what you are on about as I don't follow Sailing in the slightest! (Could you tell?)

Anyhow seriously Eddie Merckx - The greatest all-rounder cyclist there was.

Also Shirley Crabtree.  

Just shows how little it takes to get a Knighthood.

The best active fighter, but all time - Sugar Ray Robinson all day.

Sir Walter Raleigh.

Sailor, pirate, giver of tobacco and bicycle manufacturer.

May have split the atom too, although never published his work so can't be truly credited with it.

my shout would be Ed Coan

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

Difficult to compare across different sports but I like someone like Daley Thompson. Consecutive Olympic gold medals and unbeaten for 9 years in an event where you have to be good at 10 different disciplines.

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

"Haile had major competition wins at distances between 1500 metres and the marathon, moving from outdoor, indoor and cross country running to road running in the latter part of his career. He broke 61 Ethiopian national recordsranging from 800 metres to the marathon, set 27 world records, and is widely considered one of the greatest distance runners in history."

Also the best book I have ever read.

C.B. Fry - He was also offered the Kingship of Albania in his spare time too.

You've obviously never been yacht racing. *shaking my head*

Dammit. So much this. And Guy Lafluer. And Rocket Richard, And Gordie Howe.

Wilt Chamberlain, both on court and off court.

...or more seriously. Jordan.

Justin Bieber

http://www.stuff.co.nz/entertainment/62569725/Justin-Bieber-spars-with-Floyd-Mayweather

Take a hike, boat shoe man.

Cricket= Michael Bevan

Boxing= Muhammad Ali

Football - Pele, even did Viagara commercials I hear.

Bevan was a remarkable ODI specialist...incredible even...part of me died when he scored that ton versing the OZ and Kiwis at the MCG during 2001/02.

Kim Jong Un

How has no one mentioned Bo Jackson yet?