Roger Federer: The best ATHLETE ever?

see i dont believe that for a second. there are athletes out there that have went twice as long as him completely untouched. he's far down the ladder as the best athlete in regards to their sport. only going a few years considered "the best". an example of someone who destroys him is anne-caroline chausson in regards to DH mtb. she went unbeaten from 96 all the way to 05 (minus 2004 due to injury). thats not including her unbeaten years in the juniors from 93-95. so thats 12 years untouched. oh and shes equally impressive in the dual and 4x... not to mention still has it in BMX as shown by her gold at olympics this year. in dh, she started out as unbeatable and retired as such. kind of dwarfs this guy's achievements just a tad when you try to compare him to other athletes in perspective to their sports. hardly the best, although in tennis he is a god among men.
 
mmmm not so much. take the amount of men playing tennis and compare it to the amount of women doing dh mt bike, bmx, whatever. It doesnt even compare. Thats why i dont think anyone doing sports with little availability (ie any snowsport, fmx, dh mtbike, wakeboard, anything that involves a relative amount of money) should be considered the best athletes by any means. Thats why I give street skate boarders so much props, because its super hard and a ton of people, from all around the world and of all demographics do it.
 
It's hard to say who the best athlete in the world is, but as far as who is the best in their division I would say Michael Phelps as a swimmer, Tanner as a freestyle skier, etc...
 
and i would like to remind everyone...how many titles win before he got to play with another superstar (pippen)? oh, yeah, zero. and scottie was a great player, though had a much shorter prime than the air man, hence his lesser play once he left da bulls. but scottie took a lot of pressure off jordan, he has a better defender and usually took the best player in positions 1-3 on the other team, letting jordan focus more on the offensive end. also, jordan got the most bull shit, ref wants an autograph after the game calls of anyone in the history of the NBA, which definitely helped him win some close playoff games.
 
it doesn't matter. she had her competition. and as you said, comparing an athlete to their respective sport. this is what makes the argument and claims that this dude is the best out of anyone stupid. shall we place micheal jordon higher or lower than him because he is playing a team sport instead of an individual sport? how can you compare? if you really want to compare oranges to apples, then lets do it. once you start selecting which sports are eligible and which aren't, then you're just creating the best athlete even though he's not even close (regarding their respective sports). going with what this is about, comparing the successes of athletes to their respective sports, roger doesn't come close to cutting it.
 
ok so i agree with you that we shouldnt be comparing one sport to another, but my point is that the athletes arent going to be as highly attuned to their given sports without a large talent pool to pull competition from. it would be one thing for me to just pick up underwater pingpong and make a huge splash (pun) in the talent pool, which wouldnt take much given the miniscule number of people who play it, as opposed to someone who just picked up soccer and bust into to EPL. It takes a lot more (like a life-long dedication) to make it to the top of these sports based on how many people play them and that is why i was saying they are more finely attuned to their abilities and in my opinion, better athletes. the thread creator was trying to make one person the best athlete ever, and i was just trying to make the point that, at least where im from, a lot more people skate than play tennis and definitely to dh mtbiking and I feel that based on how hard skating is and how many people do it, in my opinion, makes them the best athletes.
 
ok so i agree with you that we shouldnt be comparing one sport to another, but my point is that the athletes arent going to be as highly attuned to their given sports without a large talent pool to pull competition from. it would be one thing for me to just pick up underwater pingpong and make a huge splash (pun) in the talent pool, which wouldnt take much given the miniscule number of people who play it, as opposed to someone who just picked up soccer and bust into to EPL. It takes a lot more (like a life-long dedication) to make it to the top of these sports based on how many people play them and that is why i was saying they are more finely attuned to their abilities and in my opinion, better athletes. the thread creator was trying to make one person the best athlete ever, and i was just trying to make the point that, at least where im from, a lot more people skate than play tennis and definitely to dh mtbiking and I feel that based on how hard skating is and how many people do it, in my opinion, makes them the best athletes.
 
not talking about skating, am i? and im going to shoot you down right here and now by saying women's division oh dh has a very large talent pool. it does take life-long dedication to become one of the best and that's what she did. dh in general is a massive world-wide sport and is by no means minuscule. so your point doesn't carry weight.
 
Actually, he does DOMINATE. and he most deffinatly has heart, if not more heart than the people you listed. He's 2 grand slams away from breaking the all time grand slam record. He also was the Number 1 tennis player in the world for the longest consecutive time. (almost 5 years) He was Number 1 for 2 years WITHOUT A COACH. He also is almost 27 and he still is winning grand slams, before he retires he will have been one of the best - if not the best- player in his sport. He's comparable to Tiger for sure.
 
how has michael phelps not gotten more recognition in this thread?

He is completely dominant in his sport right now and numbers whise is the "greatest olympian of all time"
 
you have to keep in mind also, any players longevity to their respective sport.

mens tennis has at most, a 12 years span for greatness, 18-30, and considering that roger was a late bloomer, not so much a prodigy(which is very strange) he as accomplished an absolutely absurd amount.

the best player at any sport in reality though, not neccesarily the most dominant, would have to be a soccer player. Just by looking at how many people play.

ps more people seriously play tennis than skateboard.

casually tennis is an older sport right now though.
 
Best athlete ever is Usain Bolt. That guy broke a world record in running like he was reading the Sunday paper, and he was running into a headwind. He just kind of breezed over the finish line, no big deal, just crushed a world record. That guy is an animal. I'm going to have to go with Lance simply because Usain is kind of a one-hit-wonder right now, but he is the future best athlete ever.
 
stop being a little bitch doug federer has nothin on tom wallish.

im going to pee in your butt when you get home

homo i love you (no homo)
 
Let me say this: Roger federer is clearly the best tennis player at the moment. But, were you guys born yesterday? I remember about 10 years ago, pete sampras was dominating just as hard as federer. How can federer be the best tennis player ever, let alone athlete ever, if hes not even the most dominant player in history? Federer has a slighlty higher winning percent (80 to Sampras' 77), but sampras still has more titles. Sampras also has more than 150 more wins than federer. So no, federer isn't even the best tennis player in history, let alone best athlete.
 
Bump?

- 16 Grand Slams and counting

- Back to n°1

- French open is in the bag

- Almost sure to pass sampras last record of 286 weeks as n°1

- Reaching 23 consecutive Grand slam semi-finals (or better)

- Reaching 18 of 19 consecutive Grand Slam finals

I mean... The guy just can't stop..

 
nothing to do with sport, but he has DEFINATELY the greatest personality ever. such a great guy

its difficult to say whos the best athlete ever though..
 
ITS NOT A COMPETITION. ITS JIM BROWN. how the fuck isnt it jim brown he is arguably and in my opinion the greatest player in football history. Not to mention he is also known as the greatest lacrosse player in history. 99% of the people in this thread have only dominated one sport. He dominated two. No competition. ITS FUCKIN JIM BROWN
 
and when it comes down to great athletes, i always think of people that excelled on a pro level in multiple sports, and without research two us-athletes come to my mind:
deion sanders (like him or not, but he played in a super bowl and the world series)michael jordan has to be up there to, since he played pro baseball when he retired
but this thing is impossible to determine. i could throw out 20 names that are considered great athletes in their respective sports, how could you put one over the other (i will stay with euro-stars of three sports, since you all know us-athletes yourself)???
motorsports: schumacher, clark, senna, sainz, peterhansel, grönholm, fangio, prostsoccer: di stefano, puskas, maradona, cruyff, beckenbauer, zidane, charlton, platiniskiing: maier, stenmark, tomba, klammer
so its only three sports, and you cannot even decide which athlete is the best of one sports, so how could you find out who is the best athlete overall?
take just the nfl for example. is it rice, montana, unitas, brown, payton, favre, elway, brady or manning, who is it? is it some pre-modern-era player? should the best-ever player be a QB, why cant a MLB make it? postseason vs regular season stats.
BOTTOM LINE: i think its very naive to believe you could go out and name the best athlete of the world. it will always be like "best in which era? which sport? what didnt he do well? why did he lost there? blablabla?"

 
A couple more accomplishments for JIM BROWN

The Sporting News voted him greatest football player ever.

He is in the NFL hall of fame, the NCAA sports hall of fame, AND the lacrosse hall of fame

All time nfl record of 104.3 yards per carry. (which no one has come close to)

3 time NFL MVP

3 time Pro Bowl MVP

9 time Pro Bowl selection

8 time NFL first team all pro

Not to mention he averaged 38 points per game in high school basketball

This thread should now be over
 
for some reason i can't just quote the one stat....but 104.3 yds/CARRY?

...so on average almost every carry he got started 4.3 yds in his own endzone? i think not. way to lazy to look up the stats, but i'm assuming you mean per GAME.
 
hard to compare athletes in different sports.
Roger is definitely the best tennis player of all time, and once he's retired everyone will finally acknowledge that.
Lance Armstrong is definitely the best cyclist of all time, but the only reason I couldn't call him the greatest athlete of all time is because you don't just win cycling events on your own, you have a team to protect you and boost you to win.
There are so many athletes you can throw in the mix for best all time, but I find it too hard to compare athletes from different sports.
 
Haha football is a joke sorry. Rugby is badass though. But you want a sport, try hockey they are really the only athelete that can go out and be somewhat competitive in the sport they are trying. But then you take like a football or basketball player put them on skates and watch the show.
 
I think it got mentioned, but I think the real question being asked here is...

Is Federer better then Sampras? and i think the answer is no...

Both have f*ck all personality though... so it's a tie there!
 
yeah, but only for the game of football are at least 10 candidates on who was the best ever.
regseason vs. postseason, QBs vs. the rest, outstanding single seasons vs. total career accomplishments, post-merger vs. pre-merger
for exampleyou could take brady over manning for his rings and for the alltime season TD record, but you could take manning over brady for regseason stats & duration.
you can even discuss whether jerry rice was the best WR ever. moss needed less games for several career milestones and yes, rice was good BUT also played 20 seasons.
than with brown, his times were different. playing style and so on. who knows if emmitts accomplishments are bigger than those of brown?
another conflict is supporting cast. barry sanders had arguably one of the worst lines of all RBs with as much career yardage. but how much worse were they?

ok, this got a little long and its kinda offtopic, but i think (you can think what you want) that youre not doing anyone justice in determining an overall sports champion when you cannot even agree on the best nfl player
 
yeah but considering he dominated pro football, pro lacrosse, and even college basketball. thats what an athlete is. someone who dominates one sport like MJ or federer or tiger does not come close just because they dominated only one sport. I dont think in our lifetime or even ever for that matter will we see an athlete who can dominate 3 sports.
 
thats a stretch to say that federer is better than tiger. Tiger is often under more pressure to perform than federer granted i may be bias given that i golf and hate tennis. but tiger is the best in his sport and i believe will be the best all time golfer in the world. though MJ takes best athlete ever in my opinion. and a close second is wayne gretzky.
 
You have to be kidding..... right ?

I mean debating if Federer is the best sport "athlete" is one thing, but in his own sport, he's the absolute best ever.

Sampras? Please. Sampras has 14 majors, Fed is now at 16 and counting. Sampras never won the french open and pretty much sucked on clay. Plus his backhand was average at best. Lastly, during their only encounter, Federer won.

I understand that you might be from the US and like many you thought Sampras records would stand the test of time... But it wasn't the case.

 
Good point.... failure...
However - my point about personalities was bang on!!
I think my vote may go to Pele, Ali or Lance though.... But Federer would be up there, as would Schumacher and Jordan.... and Bolt - there is much more to come from him...
Ah fuck it, it's to hard to decide - back to the fence for me.
 
bo jackson and jim thorpe definitely need a shout in this thread. both of these multi-professional athletes were ridiculously talented
 
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