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Most dominant sports-people of all time?

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AlanJLegend

U19 Vice-Captain
Obviously this is a very general question, but who is THE most dominant sportsman/sportswoman/athlete at their sport of all time? There are many different sports so it's near impossible to single out one person who is better than everyone else overall, but we can surely name a few.


Don Bradman - Arguably (albeit I don't know anyone who would argue) the best player of all time. He ended his career with an average of 99.94, with the closest anyone has these days is around 57 or so. I honestly cannot see anyone ever having such a high average ever again playing as many games as Bradman did.


Michael Phelps - He entered 8 swimming events at the Beijing Olympics and won all 8 of them, convincingly. That is a pretty epic feat.


Roger Federer - I won't name every major tournament he has won, but I don't think it really needs explaining how consistently good this guy has been.



I'm sure there are others too. I don't know much about American sport, but obviously Michael Jordan was pretty good, as have been a few baseball players.
 
Redbacks

Redbacks

International Captain
Bit hard to say Federer as he is still playing and now we get to see him decline slightly, Nadal has his measure, and did so even during his peak period.

Tiger Woods - has taken winning tournaments consistently to a new level
 
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inbox24

inbox24

International Debutant
Someone did a comparison of this before and I remember when compared the other major sports like baseball, Bradman was a few standard deviations above any of the top players who played any other sport.
 
Matt79

Matt79

Hall of Fame Member
Yeah, Bradman is a freak even among freaks. Players who have been similarly dominant to him have pretty much all been competing in niche sports that don't have the mass participation of cricket, or that aren't professional.

Leaving that aside, Lance Armstrong's efforts at Le Tour are pretty amazing, especially as he has yet to be proven to have been on performance enhancing drugs at a time when lots of his competitors have been proven to be. (Not saying that he was but simply hasn't been caught yet, I'm just saying that while I have an open mind as to whether or not he was on gear, lots of others who were at the time have since been caught, but no definite proof re: Lance has come out). But either way, Armstrong didn't carry his dominance through the rest of the season in the manner required to make him comparable to a Bradman.
 
T

The Baconator

International Vice-Captain
Yeah, hard to top Bradman over such a long period in a mass-participation sport.

More recently, in baseball, Pedro Martinez from 1997 to 2003ish and a juiced up Barry Bonds from 2000-2004 were pretty unstoppable.
 
PhoenixFire

PhoenixFire

International Coach
Usain Bolt looks as though he is in with a shout. Bradman for obvious reasons, but the ultimate has to be......



Beryl Burton. WAG.
 
Goughy

Goughy

Hall of Fame Member
GeraintIsMyHero said:
Michael Johnson was absolutely phenomenal at his peak
Click to expand...
Yeah, incredible. As was Ed Moses (fantastic)



Sergey Bubka was another in Track & Field that dominated.



Alexander Karelin was unbeaten in 13 years of greco-roman wrestling and was a freak athlete and maybe the hardest man on the planet.



I believe Wayne Gretzky is the closest to Bradman in terms of the statistical comparison (though still a distance behind) from major sports.
 
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