G.O.A.T.: pick your greatest athlete of all time

[Garcia Bronco]

Originally Posted by Amnorix

Of course, you can be hella athletic and not be playing a sport. In my book, Olympic gymnastics is also a competition, but not a sport. But that doesn't mean the gymnasts aren't ridiculously athletic. They obviously are. They just aren't playing a sport.

So Tiger is eligible, despite playing something I don't call a sport.

But all that said, no golfer is ever going to win the prize in my book either. Golf demands ultra-precision at a specific and narrow ability -- aiming a ball with a stick. Yay?


To me, "athletic" means good at a wide range of athletic activities and, more specifically -- if I were to come up with 10 or 100 different "athletic" activities and put them out there, someone who is more athletic would do better at them than someone who was less athletic.

For that reason, no golfer is going to be on the list. If I ran prime-Tiger against prime-Wilt in, say, the Olympic decathalon events, Wilt will wipe the floor with him. Wilt had legendary strength.

Someone above mentioned Wilt vs. Russell. Unfortunately, in my book, "leadership" isn't factored into "athletic". Nor is teamwork (except to the extent vision is involved, I suppose).

So Tom Brady and Larry Bird -- both of whom were utterly elite at the team sports that they played in -- are out. Neither was terribly "athletic" as I understand that term.

A sport is anything that is competitive, so yes, gymnastics at the Olympics is a sport. They are also athletes.