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Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

For me, 100 meters is the essence of sports. Usain Bolt is completely superior to everyone else in the world in a sport that almost everyone in the world have tried. I think he's the greatest ever, all sports included.

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

He could be! I think he needs to maintain his dominance for awhile before he can claim such a thing for sure, but his meteoric rise has been just unthinkably amazing.

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

What Usain Bolt has done is pretty amazing - he's in a class of his own right now. Personally, I would pick Michael Phelps over Usain Bolt. Swimming requires a lot more strength than running without sacrificing any of the speed, and Phelps is undeniably the greatest athlete ever in that sport. 14 gold medals, (8! just last year) and a bunch of world records don't lie.

Other candidates (no particular order):

Pelé
Jim Thorpe
Wayne Gretzky
Jesse Owens
Secretariat
Lance Armstrong

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

Bolts performances are undoubtedly phenominal and he is definitely on his way to being one of the all time greats. Equally impressive was the great Keninise Bekele over 10000 meters. Here is man who has dominate distance running over track, road and cross-country for several years now and is still completely untouchable. Any man that can run a 52 second lap at the end of a 10k race is pritty amazing.

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

How old was the record before Bolt beat it the first time? It's hard to get excited about broken records in track and field and swimming because it seems like they get broken every year. Track and field is a little different but does anybody doubt it will be broken again in the next few years?

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

He broke it a few months before the olympics and prior to that it had been broken the year before by his fellow country man Asafa Powell (3rd in the 100m).

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

John
How old was the record before Bolt beat it the first time? It's hard to get excited about broken records in track and field and swimming because it seems like they get broken every year. Track and field is a little different but does anybody doubt it will be broken again in the next few years?

Well, if someone has said two years ago that the 100 m record would be 9.58 in 2009, that person would certainly not have been taken seriously...

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

god, i was so blown away when usain ran that! what a dominance over everyone! and he's still quite young. he'll have plenty more records. he'll put it so far away nobody will touch it for some time.

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

How old was the record before Bolt beat it the first time? It's hard to get excited about broken records in track and field and swimming because it seems like they get broken every year. Track and field is a little different but does anybody doubt it will be broken again in the next few years?

It's not that he broke the record, but the amount he broke it by.

Now that he's shattered his own 200M record (after breaking Michael Johnson's record, which I didn't think would be broken for a long time, and I follow track closely), I think there is something to Henrik's claim.

What's tough is comparing all the sports...

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

sonofsamiam


What's tough is comparing all the sports...


It's hard enough comparing eras in the same sport.

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

It's hard for me to call somebody the best sportsman ever in a sport that's so one dimensional. There's no defense, there's no good 'all around' player. No matter who you're playing you play the same, and you only have to be good at one thing.

I also try to resist the temptation to call people playing now automatically the best ever just because they're the ones setting the records. It's like Roger Federer. He went 81-4 one year. John McEnroe went 81-3 one year. If they played in their primes with graphite rackets, Federer would win. If they played in their primes with wood rackets, McEnroe would win. And with a faster game it's easier now for the best players to dominate, so how can you compare his record of 15 majors against Emerson's record of 12? There's no rational way to determine which feat is better since the game is so different.

Then there's Babe Ruth. He set his record on performance-inhibiting drugs!

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

i would have to pick don bradman as the best sportsman ever. i'm surprised his name hasn't come up in this topic already. i guess cricket isn't all that popular here. if you haven't heard of "the don", i highly recommend reading the wiki article about him. if you can't be bothered doing that, these numbers should sum it up. they are the top 5 highest career test batting averages:

Donald Bradman (AUS) 99.94
Graeme Pollock (SAF) 60.97
George Headley (WI) 60.83
Herbert Sutcliffe (ENG) 60.73
Eddie Paynter (ENG) 59.23

your first instinct might be to doubt such an incredible statistic, but there's not much of a reason to. it represents a 20-year career batting mostly against the best cricket teams in the world.

here's the wiki article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_Bradman

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

To be considered among the greats,what Bolt needs is longevity like Carl Lewis with his 9 gold medals. Personally,I think Tiger Woods will eventually go down as the all-time greatest athlete. If you consider golf a sport,that is.

Re: Usain Bolt the best sportsman ever?

See, that's what I was going to say about the cricket player. If we were choosing the greatest athlete by just domination, it would be Tiger Woods hands down. It's a world game and he has dominated the world. But, can I say that he is a better athlete than Bolt? I don't think so. It's apples and oranges.