Greatest GOAT of all sports

[Turbo_Supremo]

Not in the same league as Terry Fox.

This!!! - Ran a Marathon a day for 143 days straight with 1 leg and battling Cancer. His legacy / foundation has raised over $800 Million for Cancer research.

Terry Fox is the GOAT.

[doulos]

My vote is for Yiannis Kouros

[townghost]

Persons like Vladislav Tretiak, Lev Yashin and Ole Einar Bjorndalen deserved to be mentioned in this thread as well. And if I were to chose the GOAT among the greats, I guess it would be Muhammad Ali.

[PenguinHunter]

Great discussion everyone - I am glad that there is near consensus that it is not Tom Brady though.

I am also impressed that in a hockey forum that everyone discussed numerous other sports and just didn't take the easy avenue and say Gretzky.

Especially when Gretzky has more assists then Jagr (#2) has in total points.

As someone mentioned the Gap between the next best on the list is definitely something to consider.

So where does the biggest gap fall?

Gretzky - Lemieux/Orr?
Jordan - Lebron
Brady - Manning/Brees
Ali - ?????
Tiger - ????

[2014olympicgold]

Has Bo Jackson been said? I guess his injury holds him back

Jim Brown also is in the College Football HOF, NFL HOF, and Lacrosse HOF.

I dunno if you have them as GOAT's but they are def apart of the conversation.

Terry Fox, he is definitely Canada's most important athlete, and you can say greatest canadian athlete of all time. He makes a good case for GOAT. Just depends on your definition of GOAT.

[Kofax]

I'm just going to go off on a bit of a diatribe on swimming and Phelps.

The main reason he is the most decorated Olympian, is because there are way too many swimming events. See below:
freestyle: 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m.
backstroke: 100m and 200m.
breaststroke: 100m and 200m.
butterfly: 100m and 200m.
medley: 200m and 400m.
freestyle relay: 4 x 100m, 4 x 200m.
medley relay: 4 x 100m (men, women, mixed)
open water: 10km

That's 18 different events. 18 different medal opportunities. What other sport comes close, except maybe running (which a similar argument can be made for)?

To me, there are two main issues here. First are the distances, and second are different strokes.

Distance:
I understand the need for different differences as a measure of burst vs stamina, but how different really is 50m vs 100m vs 200m etc.? There are 6 total for freestyle alone. Why do we need 6? There should be 3 max. One short, one medium, one long. End of story. 6 different distances for a single type of swimming is ridiculous and just in there to pad medal counts.

Stroke:
There are far too many different types of strokes in swimming. I understand the main and fastest swimming, the frontstroke, and maybe the backstroke, although even that isn't necessary. But the breast stroke and butterfly? How did someone even come up with these types of swimming in the first place other than for training / muscle building purposes? Does this type of stroke offer you any type of competitive advantage? No! The point of the Olympics is to showcase the best and fastest, and that is the frontstroke. Period. Nowhere is this more evident, then having an event called the "freestyle" where you can pick the type of stroke to use, but everyone just uses the front stroke because it's the best. What other sport do we add in some kind of handicap by limiting the way people are supposed to do things? And then not only do add in these extra strokes, but we add in more distances for them too!?! Come on.

To me it should be limited to the following:
freestyle: 100m, 400m, 1500m
backstroke: 200m
freestyle relay: 4 x 200m
open water: 10km

Six events total. Now Phelps is likely the best swimmer ever to compete, and no-one can take those accomplishments away from him, but when people refer to him as the most decorated Olympian of all time, it grinds my gears. He's only the most decorated Olympian because of all the swimming events and how similar they are. This extends to other events that have the same thing at different distances. I get the need for some, but typically there are just too many.

Rant over.

[senryu]

Gretzky - Lemieux/Orr?
Jordan - Lebron
Brady - Manning/Brees
Ali - ?????
Tiger - ????

We can take Tiger and Brady out of this. Jack Nicklaus is better than Tiger. Jack has 18 major wins, and 19 major second place finishes. Tiger has 15 and 6. This year Brady joined two other quarterbacks who also have 7 NFL championships, so he's not markedly better in the criterion that people use to boost him up.

Ali is hard for me to judge as I can't discern the differences between elite boxers. I think his magnetic and memorable personality helps put a shine on his athletic achievement.

The difference between Gretzky's career achievements and the next best player's is greater than the difference between Jordan and LeBron's.

I'll go with Jordan as being the most GOAT-ish of the five choices presented, because the number of players on a basketball team is fewer, Jordan played most of the games on offense and defense, and thus Jordan is more responsible for his team's success than Gretzky. But there's an argument to be had.

[lucafen4]

A meme that keeps popping up on my Facebook says this:

Terry Fox ran a full marathon every day, on one artificial leg, for 143 days until he died raising millions of dollars for a disease that eventually took his life. He didn't do it for glory, or for teammates, for fans, or a city. He did it because he felt it was right.

Pretty hard to argue with that statement on greatness.

Much stronger argument for GOAT in the category of inspiration, selflessness & just a good human. I get it and there's nothing against Fox's legacy in Canada and around the world I just think his feat belongs in a different category - outside of Athletic GOAT. Greatest Canadian of All Time is an example.


Ben Smith ran 401 marathons in 401 days. Here's his book: https://www.amazon.ca/401-Marathons-.../dp/B079VJ9FJN

There's ultra-marathon runners that set insane mile over mile paces and go for days.

[Daydream Nation]

Now Phelps is likely the best swimmer ever to compete, and no-one can take those accomplishments away from him, but when people refer to him as the most decorated Olympian of all time, it grinds my gears. He's only the most decorated Olympian because of all the swimming events and how similar they are. This extends to other events that have the same thing at different distances. I get the need for some, but typically there are just too many.

Rant over.

I completely agree. Plus, it is such a niche sport with a limited number of participants. Seems like he is the greatest swimmer ever but I am always going to prefer the GOATs of the major sports such as Jordan, Pele, or Ali.

[Dennis]

Nearly 1000 different swimmers participate in each Olympics

[2014olympicgold]

I completely agree. Plus, it is such a niche sport with a limited number of participants. Seems like he is the greatest swimmer ever but I am always going to prefer the GOATs of the major sports such as Jordan, Pele, or Ali.

Well the flip side of all this is 2 points:
- More people likely have an opportunity to swim than to box.
- With the amount of medals...Many swimmers have the same opportunity to rack up that many medals. Gymnastics is the same, lots of opportunities to rack up medals. However, Phelps has 23 golds, next closest is 9 by 4 different people (Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz, Paavo Nurmi, Larisa Latynina). What Phelps did is ridiculous and him more than doubling other athletes at the Olympics is ridiculous.

Phelps also has 13 Gold Medals in individual events, the most ever by an Olympian, and the person in 2nd is Ray Ewry with 8 (1900-1908). WHAT?! That is such a gap it's not even a joke. The closest modern day records is 5 by cross country skiers Daehile and Bjorgen.

[Invictus]

This!!! - Ran a Marathon a day for 143 days straight with 1 leg and battling Cancer. His legacy / foundation has raised over $800 Million for Cancer research.

Terry Fox is the GOAT.

Terry Fox is a BIG no.

This is a talk of the GOAT of sports. Terry Fox is an icon who continues to inspire many long after his death. But running was only a medium - great at sports he was not. He belongs in a different GOAT list.

[Axeman33]

Terry Fox is a BIG no.

This is a talk of the GOAT of sports. Terry Fox is an icon who continues to inspire many long after his death. But running was only a medium - great at sports he was not. He belongs in a different GOAT list.

Other than the hot dog guy, who you got? If running isn't a sport, neither is hot dog eating LOL!

[Daydream Nation]

Well the flip side of all this is 2 points:
- More people likely have an opportunity to swim than to box.
- With the amount of medals...Many swimmers have the same opportunity to rack up that many medals. Gymnastics is the same, lots of opportunities to rack up medals. However, Phelps has 23 golds, next closest is 9 by 4 different people (Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz, Paavo Nurmi, Larisa Latynina). What Phelps did is ridiculous and him more than doubling other athletes at the Olympics is ridiculous.

Phelps also has 13 Gold Medals in individual events, the most ever by an Olympian, and the person in 2nd is Ray Ewry with 8 (1900-1908). WHAT?! That is such a gap it's not even a joke. The closest modern day records is 5 by cross country skiers Daehile and Bjorgen.

When Ali was boxing, it was much more of a mainstream sport with much greater participation than today. Sounds like Phelps is the most dominant Olympian ever.

[Invictus]

Other than the hot dog guy, who you got? If running isn't a sport, neither is hot dog eating LOL!

Never said running wasn't a sport.
From OP "Ranking of the GOATS in each sport."
Terry Fox isn't a GOAT at running. He is a GOAT for other reasons, but not what this thread is about.

Hotdog guy was more of a joke (Is eating competitions considered a sport??) but he did come in and dominate and completely changed the eating sport.

To answer your question:
My first mentioned was Muhammad Ali.
I also mentioned a runner - Usain Bolt
Also Wilt the Stilt Chamberlain who is inducted into two different sports Hall of Fames which I think bodes really well when discussing GOAT of all sports. Which other person mentioned can say they are two Hall of Fames?