Top greatest athlete of all time

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>greatest athlete of all time
>basketball player

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I hate the word athlete. There's more to sport than athleticism (not really in American sports apart from the qb or ice hockey other than that's its be born big, black and fast and you have a career)

from a purely statistical standpoint any answer other then gretzky is full retard. At least with the big 4 north american sports

>Gretzky career points total 2,857

#2 in points is Lemiux and he has like 1000 less.

The one true GOAT.

>gretzky has more assists than anyonr else has points

Whew

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>baseball

> Carl Lewis

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Jenner can't be rivaled for pure athleticism. End of thread.

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>Greatest athlete of all time thread
> The actual GOAT doesn't appear 21 posts in.

I guess it goes without saying but I'll say it anyways

>no Bo Jackson yet

He really isn't. Foreman is the GOAT heavyweight.

>literally in the OP

you stupid cunt

>not having a 13 year long undefeated streak while competing at the highest levels of your sport.
>not being a 3 time Olympic Gold Medalist
>not being a 9 time World Champion
>not being a 12 time Continental Champion
>not being a 13 time National Champion

GOAT.

Messi

It's between Messi, Bolt or LeBron

No 20th century athlete can compete with contemporary athletes

It's a sport played by 0.000000001% of the world population, who cares

Adolfo Cambiaso has been that dominant at polo but it's a rich people sport, no one cares

Ashton Eaton > Bolt >>>>>>>>>>>>>> LelBron >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Messi

Decathlon is too specific, no one plays it seriously

If he was good enough at one of these 10 sports he'd focus on it

This. Athleticism goes to Jenner. Literally the poster child of being an athlete

>implying the Decathlon isn't the ultimate track and field test

>this is what spic manlets actually think

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If you invent a sport and only you play it you'd dominate it more than any other athlete

Will it make you the greatest athlete alive? Adolfo Cambiaso is the most donimant athlete in team sports but since he plays polo no one talks about him

Mount Rushmore of Sports GOATs:

Don Bradman
Wayne Gretzky
Aleksandr Karelin
Ashton Eaton

Except the Decathlon has been in the Olympics since 1912 faggot and has athletes from every continent trying to qualify.

>If you invent a sport and only you play it you'd dominate

Decathlons are held all over the world my black friend.

That Argie is a dumbass. Decathlon was THE track and field event. When Bruce won it in '76 shit was the biggest event in the Olympics.

Holy shit this guy is an animal. Is he an escaped Russian experiment?

>people non ironically listing Messi as the greatest of ALL time when he is under no metric even the greatest of his own era and even if he is its only by a slight margin

Messi worship is a mental illness.

This 3 of them are undisputed Goats in theier sport.The last is the jack of all trades,Goat.

Rulon>>>>>>Karelin

>No Jim Thorpe

This man is the greatest athlete of all time and its not even fucking close.

you can't really list Gretzky as the GOATEST of goats cause his records and shit don't translate to current day. If you took Gretzky and put him in the 2016 NHL he wouldnt even come close to reaching the numbers he did in his career. If you unironically believe he would reach those numbers all I will say is that is delusional. Since the 80s hockey has changed moreso than basketball or sawker in terms of how many goals/pts/assists one player can get within a season.

ayyyy based leaf bro

How the fuck is this even a discussion? Thorpe is the greatest all around athlete of all time. Everyone else is just fighting for GOAT per sport status.

Pelé

Really you have to throw bodybuilders, strong man competition guys, runners and track stars, also there's sumo wrestlers a whole nother can of worms there. Athlete is way too vague a word to come out with a definitive #1

Bo Jackson

/thread

Gordie Howe is best hockey ever
Arnold palmer best athlete of all time

Bo knows

Lemieux is 8th in points all time. 2nd in ppg.

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HE IS THE MAN

an horse isn't even a athlete let alone the greatest one

Injured during his prime, but this is still my vote... Also Mike Tyson before prison.
I knew faggots would post this, but no.... fuck Gretzky...
> Dead puck era, expansion teams, no goalies blocking from the knees and playing standing up, weak defensive play in the league at the time, and not at all a two way player.
He is like Cy Young with complete games pitched... All judged and praised off of stats that will never be touched because of weakness of the particular era.

steroids/10

Michael Phelps, no question

Don Bradman is the objective answer.

>Gordie Howe
>best hockey player ever

Bobbie Orr is also superior, and Messier

sorry but cricket is a leisure activity, not a sport

Saved to my American banter folder

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Being better at your sport than anyone else was at theirs doesn't make you the best athlete. There's no running, jumping, or a lot of other things in hockey that make someone the best athlete.

Ultimately it's basically impossible to say, but people that have played multiple sports at a professional level or someone like LeBron James who easily could have played other sports, runs exceptionally quickly, jumps exceptionally high, great first step, etc, could be debated to be the best. It's really hard to say though because they are all different sports.

hockey players automatically have superior conditioning to any other Big sport, they will however lack in strength if they are more of a finesse player, but the same is true to any sport

Only swimming is more taxing

clearly you know shit about boxing
its coo

Right, hockey players have things that a 100m sprinter doesn't have, and vice versa. Like I said, being the best at your sport doesn't make you the best athlete. I do doubt that Gretzky was as good of an athlete as LeBron, Bo, Bolt, etc though.

>Boxing is the most physically demanding sport in the world by a mile. According to several studies about “science of muscles and movement” expert label boxing as the most demanding sport for an athlete. When we talk about elite boxing the Mayweather’s and the Ali’s of this world these athletes are physically the fittest in the whole world.

totalsportek.com/list/most-difficult-sports-in-the-world/

so I guess Ali

>steroids

Post proofs.

>talk about elite boxing the Mayweather’s

Hasn't this meme ran its course yet?

>post proof that a USSR athlete in the 80s-90s did steroids

Ok, he was a russian athlete in the 80s and 90s

his nickname is The Experiment

Miraculously recovered from severe injuries and credits his team doctor

This
Boxing or the few multi-pro sport athletes that exist.
Not Ali though...

"""No"""" boxers box like twice a year, even Ali not that often. NBA players play once every 2nd day. Big difference.

yeah man, they just lay around for half the year and then get up and box like once or twice a year, max

That was the most retarded thing I've read in a long time.

This too..
>"""No"""" boxers box like twice a year, even Ali not that often. NBA players play once every 2nd day. Big difference.

A boxers sparring session is more taxing than basketball.

Abosultely

>Not Ali though

We'll never see another heavyweight move as quickly as Ali ever again.

tyson of faster you fat nigger.

You don't watch boxing do you? Plenty are quicker if that is your only argument...
even though I can't stand him, Mayweather is faster... plenty of others too.
Ali gets the "Bruce Lee delusion" treatment.
He was in a few movies so he must be the best....no... just no..

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He was never the most physically gifted but I'd be hard pressed to name any athlete who could raise his game that much more over everyone of his peers when it matters. The NHL had to institute a rule because of his ablility on 4 on 4. He was also the greatest Ambassador for any sport ever. Never complains and will take all the time he needs to sign autographs or answer questions. As a leader, he knew when a player wasn't giving 100%. At the 87 Canada Cup, he originally didn't want to play because he was physically and mentally drained (after winning 3 cups in 4 years) but he realised what playing for your country means and putting your ego aside for the sake of the greater good. Teaming up with Mario during that tournament showed Gretzky and the world how much he had. Constantly teaching Mario subtle things about being successful at the highest level and what it takes to win everything all the time. As you can see, Mario soon became the dominant force of the NHL for the next 6 years before cancer robbed him of his glory. Scoring aside, Gretzky as a human being sets him apart from almost all others.

prime Tiger Woods

In terms of legacy, this is the only answer. No other sportsman has ever outperformed their competition by such a huge fucking margin. Even modern, professional players with all kinds of sport science shit behind them can't touch his records, and he played 80 fucking years ago. The bloke was inhuman.

Foreman demolished guys that beat Ali. Foreman is the best ever, Ali was just a bad matchup for him and had the perfect strategy. Foreman got bored and came out of retirement, and won the heavyweight title pushing 50.

>Either Tyson
>Sanders
>Joseph Parker.

Even if what you said made sense to anyone with a lick of boxing knowledge and history you're still forgetting at least 5 guys who are ahead of Foreman.

>Constantly teaching Mario subtle things about being successful at the highest level and what it takes to win everything all the time.

This is a bunch of crap peddled from that "Gretzky to Lemieux" book that came out about a decade ago. What really helped Mario win were good linemates. Gretzky in 87, Recchi in 91 and Stevens in 92. Or rather, probably, it was Lemieux that made Gretzky better in 87 to defeat the SU. Gretzky is great, there's no doubt about it, but don't start fucking attributing Lemieux's success to him just because they skated together as linemates for a fraction of one international tournament, enabling Gretzky to sprinkle Lemieux with magic dust, thus propelling No. 66 to a level darn near as good as No. 99. Nothing tangible even remotely suggests that. It's insulting.

>He was never the most physically gifted
Not a good start for greatest athlete of all argument...
See thisAlso Tiger Woods or MJ were better "ambassadors" for sports, stop trying to sell this Gretzky shit...

I'll admit I recently read that book and may have downplayed Mario's importance to the 87 Team. Mario was always the most talented player in NHL but he didn't have the work ethic (or the teamates on Pittsburgh) to be successful. Personally I'd put him ahead of Gretzky at their peaks. I watched the all 3 games of the 87 Canada Cup final on youtube and I noticed a distinct difference between Mario in game 1 and games 2 and 3. He played better in those final 2 games than any season he had played previously up to that point.

I would honestly replace Eaton with Phelps because >muh medals.

Top two are definitely Karelin and Bradman, though.