Most dominant sports-people of all time?
 

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.

Heather McKay - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

'When she retired in 1981 at the age of 40, McKay had gone nearly 20 years with only two defeats to her name. '

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

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.

Yeah, Charles Davis' Best of The Best

Cricket Web - Cricket Books: The Best of The Best

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.

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.

Michael Johnson was absolutely phenomenal at his peak

What sport did Michael Johnson play?

Bradman immeadately springs to mind, then the likes of Phelps, Federer and Woods etc.

Michael Jordan, Jackie Joyner-Kersee. And for most of the time, Steffi Graf.

Was having a debate at work today on the question: Steffi Graf - hawt or not?

No.

Matt:

http://i.a.cnn.net/si/2004/writers/m...nson_getty.jpg

Hawt. Too large in the nasal area, for sure, but who cares when her legs are that good and her skirts are that short?