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Topic ClosedBest Athlete of all time

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Poll Question: Who is the Best Athlete of all Time?(off this list)
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Drew View Drop Down
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Direct Link To This Post Topic: Best Athlete of all time
    Posted: July 25 2005 at 19:22
Choose. Discuss. Have Fun.

Edited by Drew
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 25 2005 at 19:59
None of them.....Jim Thorpe was the greatest all around athelete ever.


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 25 2005 at 20:44

That man is Belgium's Eddy Merckx.

Nicknamed "The Cannibal" for his insatiable appetite for victory and competition, he carved out a career that will likely never be seriously challenged.

At the age of 19 in 1964, he won the world amateur road title.

In 1967, he won the first of three world professional world titles. Armstrong has achieved the feat once, in 1993.

In 1969, Merckx contested his first Tour de France where he recorded the greatest feat in the sport's history by winning the yellow jersey, the King of the Mountains jersey, the green jersey and all three time trials.

Nowadays, no rider ever wins both the green and mountains jersey in the same Tour.

It is a record which will likely never be matched.

In other years, Merckx achieved the following:

1968 - Won Tour of Italy (also won King of Mountains jersey & green jersey)
1969 - Won Tour de France (also won King of mountains jersey & green jersey)
1970 - Won Tour de France (also won King of Mountains jersey & eight stage wins)
1971 - Won Tour de France (also won green jersey) & world road championship
1972 - Won Tour de France (also won green jersey) & Tour of Italy
1973 - Didn't compete in Tour de France but won Tour of Italy (also won points jersey) & Tour of Spain
1974 - Won Tour de France, Tour of Italy & world road championship
1975 - Finished second in the Tour de France & broke the world hour record

In his career, he won the Tour de France five times (won 35 stages), the Tour of Italy five times (including 25 stage wins) and the Tour of Spain once.

No other rider can boast such an array of victories in the big three Tours.

Aside from winning the Tour de France yellow jersey five times, Merckx also won the King of the Mountains three times and the green jersey three times. Armstrong has never won either the polka dot (mountain) or green jersey (points).

In 1971, Merckx won 54 of the 120 professional races he entered. At his peak, between 1969 and 1973, he won 250 of the 650 races he contested. During his professional career, he won 445 of the 1,582 races he entered (28% of all his races ended in victorie).

Nowadays, a cyclist like Armstrong rarely competes outside the Tour de France as he makes it his sole focus of the year.

Merckx used to race most of the year and often in most years, he contested both the Tours of France & Italy, as well as each of the one-day classics and many of the minor multi-stage events.

Merckx's dominance of other major races included:

Tour of Lombardy - won twice
Paris-Nice - won three times
Milan-San Remo - won seven times
Paris Roubaix - won three times
Liege-Bastogne-Liege - won five times
Amstel Gold - won twice
Tour of Flanders - won twice
Het Volk - won twice
Ghent-Wevelgem - won four times
Fleche-Wallonne - won four times
Tour of Switzerland - won once
Paris-Brussels - won once

Put simply, he was, and remains, a freak!

No cyclist has ever approached his record. It is a reasonable bet that nobody ever will.

Whilst Armstrong should be lauded for his achievement in winning a record seven Tours de France, when it comes to the question of who is the greatest cyclist, Merckx wins hands down.

For mine, Merckx may well be the greatest living athlete, across any sport.

But when it comes to cycling there was no match for this man.

copy-paste

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 25 2005 at 22:03

Off your North American list ... I've gone for Jordan ... but how does one compare his greatness vs that of Gretzky? ... surely each was as great in his sport ...

I think I'd have gone for Mohamad Ali actually, if you'd have put him in your list ... maybe Jesse Owens ... I believe these guys had greatness as men as well as being great athletes

Then there's the incomparable C.B. Fry who played cricket and football for England, and held the world record in the long jump (and was even asked to become their king by the Albanians ... I kid you not!)

My favourite sportsman of all time is twice South American footballer of the year Carlos Valderrama ... but I'll have to admit the greatest footballer I've ever seen is one Diego Maradona ...



Edited by Trotsky
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 25 2005 at 23:22
I'm going to pull for my favorite NBA player EVER, Chris Mullin!
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 25 2005 at 23:25
Armstrong
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Warning: Listening to jazz excessively can cause a laxative effect.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 25 2005 at 23:55
Originally posted by Trotsky Trotsky wrote:

 surely each was as great in his sport ...

I think I'd have gone for Mohamad Ali actually, if you'd have put him in your list ... maybe Jesse Owens ... I believe these guys had greatness as men as well as being great athletes

Then there's the incomparable C.B. Fry who played cricket and football for England, and held the world record in the long jump (and was even asked to become their king by the Albanians ... I kid you not!)

My favourite sportsman of all time is twice South American footballer of the year Carlos Valderrama ... but I'll have to admit the greatest footballer I've ever seen is one Diego Maradona ...

BOLD- TRUE

OFF THIS LIST!

Just named a few- I know there are greats everywhere- but these guys I knew of

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 26 2005 at 00:19
Originally posted by Drew Drew wrote:

Originally posted by Trotsky Trotsky wrote:

 surely each was as great in his sport ...

I think I'd have gone for Mohamad Ali actually, if you'd have put him in your list ... maybe Jesse Owens ... I believe these guys had greatness as men as well as being great athletes

Then there's the incomparable C.B. Fry who played cricket and football for England, and held the world record in the long jump (and was even asked to become their king by the Albanians ... I kid you not!)

My favourite sportsman of all time is twice South American footballer of the year Carlos Valderrama ... but I'll have to admit the greatest footballer I've ever seen is one Diego Maradona ...

BOLD- TRUE

OFF THIS LIST!

Just named a few- I know there are greats everywhere- but these guys I knew of

Off your North American list ... I've gone for Jordan  ... first line of my post ... Cheers!

"Death to Utopia! Death to faith! Death to love! Death to hope?" thunders the 20th century. "Surrender, you pathetic dreamer.”

"No" replies the unhumbled optimist "You are only the present."
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 26 2005 at 02:36
What? Only americans?
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 26 2005 at 04:05
Only men, no women. How about Steffi Graf?


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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 26 2005 at 04:14
Lance Armstrong.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: July 26 2005 at 05:51
Impossible to answer this question.

One thing for sure is that it is not Lance Armstrong. He is certainly a great athlete but today cycling is more about how good the team is. And Armstrong has always had a great team behind him. Like somebody previously said Eddy Merckx wins hands down when it comes to cycling.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 06 2005 at 20:41
Certainly Lance Armstrong is in a class all his own to my knowledge.
I'll see you on the Darkside of the moon...
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 12 2005 at 17:38
Roger Waters. 

I don't know about best anymore, music and dru... erm... school have kind of slowly replaced my interest in sports in the past five years(which I just realized...), but my favorite athelete will always be Tom Glavine, just for that ball he tossed me at Turner Field when he was with the Braves when I was a little kid. 

Damn the Atlanta Braves, they're too cheap to keep their good players.
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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 13 2005 at 15:18

Armstrong.

Cancer survior, 7 time Tour De France champion, and he's married to Sheryl.

 

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 13 2005 at 17:38

ARMSTRONG THE LOUSY QUITER!

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Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 16 2005 at 22:54
Gordie Howe.  My favorite is Jose Cruz.
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