Idly musing about the world of Athletics and about athletes who have been in a different class to the rest for an extended period.
Names that come to mind are Usain Bolt, Ed Moses and Sergei Bubka, with a side order of Michael Johnson and Mo Farah, though without googling I have little idea how long each remained unbeaten in major events or how many major events each won.
It also occurred to me that (to my shame) I can't think of a single female athlete that has dominated her event to the same extent as the men above. Am I just being blind and missing some obvious names, or has the title in women's athletics events rarely been a given even before the event has started?
Johnson*
I can’t think of any, without cheating and googling. Heike Dreschler springs (get it?) to mind but not sure if I’m right. Who was the Norwegian woman in the marathon?
> Who was the Norwegian woman in the marathon?
Grete Waitz? She's the name that occurred to me too, but I was very young when her name was still relevant, so I wasn't around to experience her dominant years.
Edit: just googled her and she was mainly at her peak in the 80s, which is later than I thought.
Not track and field but I reckon there's a pretty good argument that Eddy Merckx is the most dominant athlete in the history of sport.
If your definition of athletes includes non track and field Olympic sports, noone comes close to the Soviet/Russian greco wrestler Alexander Karelin.
Heavyweight gold medalist in the 88, 92, and 96 Olympics and at every single world championship from 1989 to 1999. He also won every European championship he participated in during the same period (missed a couple due to injury).
The first ever fight he lost at international level was also his last: In the 2000 Olympic final he was beaten by Rulon Gardner, after which he ended his career.
In Judo, France's Teddy Rhiner is similarly still almost unbeaten at the big tournaments (he won Bronze in 2008 when essentially still a kid, and lost the open category final in 2010 after winning the heavyweights) but has since won two Olympics and 9 or ten WCs. He recently took a year off before entering the Tokio 2020 qualification cycle, will be interesting to see how this worked out!
CB
Jackie Joyner-Kersee? A long time ago though.
Allyson Felix, almost.
Two women that spring to mind without Googling.
Serena Williams is an athlete of course if you want to include tennis, which is an Olympic sport.
Chrissie Wellington in Iron man distance Triathlon, she was unbeatable for a number of years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chrissie_Wellington
Eddy Merckx is the obvious dominant athlete, to the extent they called him the cannibal, it’s the breadth of wins, all the grand tours and all the major one day races and the hour record.
The trend for referring to people from every sport as athletes irritates me to an irrational degree.
That’s her.
And it’s so hard to win a bike race - so many competitors and so many variables.
> And it’s so hard to win a bike race - so many competitors and so many variables.
I think that's what made him different.
Got caught doping a few times too, which means he probably doped many more times and wasnt caught.
Seems everyone had a cough in those days whereas all the poor modern cyclists have asthma.
Poor immune systems are probably hammered with all that cycling.
Jan Zelezny and Maria Mutola off the top of my head?
I’m not sure any athlete matches Usain Bolt however? To win gold at both the 100 and 200 at the same Olympics is phenomenally difficult to do. There’s almost no margin for error. So little in fact that prior to Bolt not a single athlete had done it at more than one Olympics. For Bolt to do it at three is utterly staggering in my opinion.
Why? That is precisely how the old Greeks used the word (somebody participating in a contest with a physical component, be it strength or speed or whatever), and also how current dictionaries define it.
It would make more sense to argue that track and field sports trying to monopolize the term by calling their collection of disciplines "athletics" is the wrong use of the word.
CB
Sorry, names are popping into my head now! Carl Lewis of course, especially during the 80s and particularly in the long jump.
Phil Taylor, world darts champion
> Got caught doping a few times too, which means he probably doped many more times and wasnt caught.
Absolutely. It was and may still be endemic to the sport.
I didn’t say I was right...
Caster Semenya...
> Why? That is precisely how the old Greeks used the word
I'm not sure Prince Philip is really an authority on these matters.
> Not track and field but I reckon there's a pretty good argument that Eddy Merckx is the most dominant athlete in the history of sport.
If you broaden it out from athlete in track-and-field terms to all major sports, then you inevitably arrive at cricket and Don Bradman. Career-long dominance (apart from during Bodyline - designed to thwart him but he was still pretty good against it) and startling clear of all other batsmen before or since in statistical terms. I think it was the fine cricket writer Gideon Haigh who once said that you can ask the question of who is the greatest sports person any number of ways but the answer's always Bradman. There have been comparative stats done and Jack Nicklaus would have had to have won at least 25 golf Majors to be up at the same level both in absolute terms and in comparison to his peers. Tiger Woods - coming after Nicklaus's actual 18 Majors - would have had to have won considerably more, somewhere beyond 30. Similar with the tennis players (and Bradman almost played tennis rather than cricket).
In less mainstream sports there's a good argument that Ronald Ross was remarkably dominant in shinty for a long time. And in fellrunning Kenny Stuart still has a lot of records to his name and also won the Glasgow marathon when he switched to the roads. Then there's Finlay Wild in recent hillrunning terms, especially on the Ben.
> The trend for referring to people from every sport as athletes irritates me to an irrational degree.
> Why? That is precisely how the old Greeks used the word (somebody participating in a contest with a physical component, be it strength or speed or whatever), and also how current dictionaries define it.
That may be the case, but just because it came to refer basically to track and field does not mean that it is a good thing that it has now become so generic that that the language as a whole is diminished.
> Phil Taylor, world darts champion
The fact that some people would in all seriousness refer to him as an athlete shows just how meaningless the word now is.
> If your definition of athletes includes non track and field Olympic sports, noone comes close to the Soviet/Russian greco wrestler Alexander Karelin.
> Heavyweight gold medalist in the 88, 92, and 96 Olympics and at every single world championship from 1989 to 1999. He also won every European championship he participated in during the same period (missed a couple due to injury).
Ingemar Stenmark has a similar record on skis. He's fitness even now as a pensioner still puts most 20 or 30 years to shame.
+1 for Stenmark. He was so dominant that FIS had to invent new disciplines (combined, Super G) to make the World Cup the least bit interesting.
Alberto Tomba deserves a mention as well.
Marit Bjørgen had a period of pretty complete dominance in women’s cross country skiing.
Tirunesh Dibaba has a quite remarkable record. Three Olympic golds (2008 in 5000m and 10.000m, 2012 in 10.000m), bookended with a bronze mendal in 2004 and a bronze medal in 2016 (after giving birth in November 2015, and running the fourth fastest time in history just to claim third place).
Five World Championship golds between 2003 and 2013. Current World Record holder in 5000m outdoor, fifth fastest marathon of all time.
> +1 for Stenmark. He was so dominant that FIS had to invent new disciplines (combined, Super G) to make the World Cup the least bit interesting.
And he still kept winning. He didn't play the politics or the media though, so the association didn't like him. They changed the funding rules and said all sponsorship should be paid through them. He ignored and got banned from the Olympics, where he would have likely won a third set of medals.
A couple of years ago on masters master he was doing standing jumps onto a wall above waist height as part of his warm ups.
Flo-Jo?
> The trend for referring to people from every sport as athletes irritates me to an irrational degree.
Quite.
Makes them sound like they're all on drugs.
> Why? That is precisely how the old Greeks used the word (somebody participating in a contest with a physical component, be it strength or speed or whatever.
So even under that definition it definitely shouldn't be used to refer to climbers and participants in other non competitive physical activities. Of course it's hijacking by gear manufacturers to refer to people they sponsor ("BD athlete" etc.) is even worse.
As good as they are/were, miles off Killian Jornets achievements.
Florence Griffiths-Joyner set records that are still unbeaten over 30 years later.
Serena Williams has also dominated her sport like few others.
As an aside, Jonah Lomu's performance at the 1995 RWC defines what it is to blow everyone's perception of what was thought possible. Like Bolt, but against whole teams AND the clock! He transcended his sport - something few do (Ali, Bolt, Pele ....).
Dick Fosberry was also hugely influential, changing his sport forever.
Extreme Sports are an interesting case. Britain's Jamie Bestwick was dominant in Vert for a decade. Unparalleled really. Trials legend Dougie Lampkin would be in a similar category; awesome but unknown outside his sport.
Climbing now has a legend in Alex Honnold. Utterly unique and dominant in his chosen field. He's transcended the sport.
> ........transcended his sport - something few do (Ali, Bolt, Pele ....).
> Climbing now has a legend in Alex Honnold. Utterly unique and dominant in his chosen field. He's transcended the sport.
I think it's probably a bit early to say that. If you want a climber or mountaineer that has transcended the "sport", then maybe Bonatti or Messner (I'm struggling to think of a pure rock climber) though it might depend whether they would need to be well known outside climbing.
> As good as they are/were, miles off Killian Jornets achievements.
You mean Stuart/Wild (rather than Bradman)? Yes, in terms of times and sustained speed. But there's also the question of dominance over contemporary and historical rivals - it's hard to assess how a present-day (but with 1984/85 fitness) Stuart would fare against Jornet in a race over Skiddaw, for instance.
These are always the great imponderables with such debates. Re Bradman, he was once asked in old age about how he might have done in the modern game, and I seem to recall he reckoned he'd have done even better given the increase in weaker opposing teams. Plus he would surely have scored even more heavily on modern covered pitches and with more and more things now favouring batsmen rather than bowlers generally. But it's impossible to really know - it's like the perennial debate in chess circles as to how Capablanca and Alekhine (dominant in their day, especially Capa) or indeed Fischer would have got on against the strongest players of today if somehow equipped with modern opening theory and computer-based training methods.
Paula Radcliff? I know she never got her Olympic gold but she did dominate the female distance running for a while.
> I think it's probably a bit early to say that. If you want a climber or mountaineer that has transcended the "sport", then maybe Bonatti or Messner (I'm struggling to think of a pure rock climber) though it might depend whether they would need to be well known outside climbing.
I'm coming from a position of the fact that Joe Public thinks the best climber must be "...that French Spiderman guy who climbs buildings". Few outside of climbing would know of Bonatti or Messner.
We all know Alain Robert is no where near the best climber - and we also know that technically, neither is Honnold. Neither are even close to the top. But i can think of few others whose ascents have staggered the climbing community in such a way as the FR solo. It's an odd one as technically it is 'not that hard' compared to what has been climbed.
Just as Robert has cought public attention with boldness, Honnold has done the same, but crucially inside AND outside the climbing world. A mainstream pure climbing film really is unique.
Another way of looking at it is that someone climbing 10a really won't capture much public attention. Routes that only have the quality of 'hard' seldom do as it is niche. Dawn Wall only got traction because it was BIG. That's what captures wider attention; big (and scary). And whilst we in the climbing community can imagine grades going up, few of us can imagine soloing stuff (well within our capability), with huge exposure as you get on El Cap.
I really cannot foresee what next event could light up the media inside and outside of our community. Honnold broke new ground in many ways. He has pioneer advantage. Like Lomu and Bolt, the explosive impact is unlikely to be repeated.
For me it's Bolt for men; as a single event athlete (sprinting, as opposed to just the 100m). I take the point about Bradman dominating his sport, and and the Russian wrestler, but their sports are of limited appeal and spread, whereas everyone wants to be fastest man in the world, and has the opportunity to try. 6 individual olympic golds, world records at 3 distance (world junior 400m, dont forget), with nobody else getting even close to his times. It'll be a long time before those records go. Othrwise I would go for Michael Johnson (same reasons as Bolt), or Ed Moses. 48 wind on the bounce, although the 400 hurdles was a bit esoteric when compared to the flat sprints.
For an overall athlete, how about Daley Thompson. He won everything several times, with the unfortunate Jurgen Hingsen finishing second so many times.
Ladies - Dibala has a shout, Also Jess Ennis, but I do admit to struggle with other choices, as all those who dominated female track and field during the 70's and 80's were clearly chemically turbocharged, with the possible exception of Merlene Ottey. Further back I would go for Fanny Blankers - Koehn (sp?).
Other sports, well, Bradman, Pele, Redgrave, that wrestler, Adam Peaty (top 10 times are all his), Spitz, Stenmark. I've missed out the motorsports lot; no way were Joey Dunlop and Jim Clark athletes.
Ladies other sports - Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Beryl Burton, for starters.
> Ladies other sports - Martina Navratilova, Billie Jean King, Beryl Burton, for starters.
Jeannie Longo? Although her legacy has suffered somewhat lately!
> It also occurred to me that (to my shame) I can't think of a single female athlete that has dominated her event to the same extent as the men above. Am I just being blind and missing some obvious names, or has the title in women's athletics events rarely been a given even before the event has started?
Without googling, Beryl Burton is the name that springs to my mind. That has more to do with Maxine Peake's play than knowing anything about the sport.
The story about Mike McNamara (I had to look up his name) is just wonderful. He was on his way to setting the men's record for the 12 hr time trial in 1967, she offered him a liquorice allsort as she overtook him on the way to setting the overall record.
It was two years before her record was beaten by a man, after which it stood as the women's record for an astonishing 50 years. (More googling - finally beaten in 2017 by Alice Lethbridge.)
Edit to add:
Ah. Athlete. Apologies to those above who don't see a cyclist as an 'athlete'. I know nuffink.
I chose Beryl as a cyclist as she competed against men, and was clearly so far ahead of all other contemporary women. Longo decent shout, but you could also now say Laura Trott, but as always its easier to remember contemporary performances.
> Paula Radcliff? I know she never got her Olympic gold but she did dominate the female distance running for a while.
I thought of her, with her marathon record. A bit like Bob Beamon or Seb Coe (800m) and their records. And there must be many others like that, outstanding athletes who pulled out one freakishly good performance that couldn't be bettered for a long while. But did any of them dominate in the sense that the OP requires - that, for a sustained period, time after time, their names were nailed onto the winning medal before they had even shown up at an event?
Back on to the female athletes that actually do athletics lngrid Kristiansen was eluded to earlier on but no name was mentioned.....always ran wearing white gloves.....
In my previous replies I deliberately stuck to athletes (in the conventional sense), but if talking sport in general then I'd have to put forward Michael Phelps. A mention also to Eric Murray and Hamish Bond, the most successful team ever in rowing.
There is definitely an argument for Honnold, but I'd say only with regards to soloing rather than the more general "climbing". The comment above about how his solo was "technically not that hard" is so often misinterpreted. Sure, we all know what that means if we ignore the style of ascent, but you can't isolate it like that. Technically, it's as hard as a human can currently solo that far off the ground. To state the obvious, climbing 5.12b when ropeless 2,500 feet above the deck isn't going to feel the same as climbing the same grade 100 feet up with a rope.
Disqualified due to her questionable drugs record.
I guess it is simply an idiosyncracy of British English that "athletics" and "athlete" are inconsistent in their connotations, the former but not the latter referring to track and field events. "Athletic" is even broader in its implied meaning.
But I don't buy your point about diminishing the language: Certainly the more modern trend is the narrowing of "athletics" rather than the broadening of "athlete".
As for climbers, athlete is IMO fine for competition climbers, but advertising waffle abominations like "brand XYZ athlete ambassador" make me vomit, too.
CB
Carl Lewis, he of the big and growing chin, the growth hormone doping pioneer?
At the time, Nike published details of the kit they gave to their sponsored athletes, until someone spotted that CLs shoe size still increased while in his twenties....
His face also was a textbook case of steroid acne, so whatever he won or which records he set, he is one of the generation whose achievements are probably best forgotten.
CB
> There is definitely an argument for Honnold, but I'd say only with regards to soloing rather than the more general "climbing". The comment above about how his solo was "technically not that hard" is so often misinterpreted. Sure, we all know what that means if we ignore the style of ascent, but you can't isolate it like that. Technically, it's as hard as a human can currently solo that far off the ground. To state the obvious, climbing 5.12b when ropeless 2,500 feet above the deck isn't going to feel the same as climbing the same grade 100 feet up with a rope.
Yep - exactly my point. 'Technically not that hard' was meant in a purely physical sense - not in the 'headgame' sense. His solos are otherworldly.
Who was that rower dude? 4 or 5 Olympic gold medals? British.
> But I don't buy your point about diminishing the language: Certainly the more modern trend is the narrowing of "athletics" rather than the broadening of "athlete".
Really? I can't recall a time when "athletics" had a broader meaning than it does now; how far do we have to go back - centuries? On the other hand, I think "athlete" to mean anyone doing a physical sport or activity has really only gained traction in this country (I've always put it down as an American import) in the last twenty or thirty years; the use of the term to apply to all competitors in coverage of the last Olympics really grated with me, so I'm pretty sure it's only been used relatively recently.
> As for climbers, athlete is IMO fine for competition climbers, but advertising waffle abominations like "brand XYZ athlete ambassador" make me vomit, too.
I believe the correct term is "ambassathlete".
> I believe the correct term is "ambassathlete".
I think 'Athleteador' is better...
> he wasn't around for long but Herb Elliot has the distinction of being the only athlete I can think of to win Olympic Gold with a 109% win rate.
That really is an unbelievable achievement!
Lizzy Hawker. 5 times women's UTMB winner.
I didn’t know Carl Lewis had cheated? I think I remember some suspicions being aired but that was it. Must have passed me by.
He gave 110% in every race.
Laser Viren, although probably tainted by blood doping.
> Who was that rower dude? 4 or 5 Olympic gold medals? British.
Sir Steve Redgrave. I knew he'd be there somewhere. Surely he must have a shout?
Bolt. The 100m is the biggest event in athletics, and his domination of it for a decade has no parallel in the history of the event. He has the 3 fastest times in history in the event, and his world record is more than a tenth of a second faster than the fastest time by someone who isn’t Usain Bolt. In a race where winning margins are usually hundredths of a second, that’s a vast gulf.
But even more than this; every one of the fastest thirty 100m times in history which wasn’t run by Bolt was run by an athlete who has failed a drugs test. You have to go down to Christian Coleman, who has run the 34th equal fastest time in the event, at 9.79 seconds, to find an athlete who didn’t fail a test at some point in their career. If you take out the times run by dopers, Bolt has the nine fastest times in history and a 0.21 second margin over the next man.
And, his run in the finals of the 100m at the Beijing Olympics, where he coasted the last 20m and still set a world record, stands out for me as the single greatest moment in sport in my lifetime.
Just a shame he couldn’t finish with gold at the world championships in 2017, and keep serial cheat Justin Gatlin’s grubby hands off the title; but like Bradman’s career average falling to under 100 on his final innings, it’s the demonstration of fallibility that reminds us that these are humans after all, not just fictional creations with invented triumphs.
Bradman, incidentally, would be my only alternative suggestion- a sport regarded as little short of being a religion by nearly a quarter of the world’s population is about as mainstream as you can get, and Bradman’s margin over his nearest rival is colossal.
Good thread subject, by the way...
> And, his run in the finals of the 100m at the Beijing Olympics, where he coasted the last 20m and still set a world record, stands out for me as the single greatest moment in sport in my lifetime.
Now there's another good thread!
And I agree with you about Bolt. I don't think anyone else really comes close.
I feel Ed Moses isn't being given the recognition he deserves here, perhaps because his era predates most of the others.
To quote Wikipedia:
"In his first international meet, Moses won the gold medal ahead of teammate Mike Shine while setting a world record of 47.63 seconds in the process. After breaking his own world record the following year at the Drake Stadium with a time of 47.45 seconds, Moses lost to West Germany's Harald Schmid on August 26, 1977 in Berlin; this was his fourth defeat in the 400 m hurdles. Beginning the next week, Moses beat Schmid by 15 metres (49 ft) in Düsseldorf, and he did not lose another race for nine years, nine months and nine days.
Moses qualified for the 1980 U.S. Olympic team but was unable to compete due to the 1980 Summer Olympics boycott. ... He went on to win his second Olympic gold medal.
By the time American Danny Harris beat Moses in Madrid on June 4, 1987, Moses had won 122 consecutive races, set the world record two more times, won three World Cup titles, a World Championship gold, as well as his two Olympic gold medals."
There are a few Paralympians who are also worthy of consideration, although classification is a confounder rather than absolute records.
John, I think it’s in part because it’s something of a ‘niche’ event. What was the depth of competition he faced, compared to other higher profile events? Sergei Bubka would be in the same category; broke world records to order at one point, more or less, but how many people aspire to be pole vaulters, compared to sprinters, or tennis players, footballers, and so on. I think domination of one of the ‘blue riband’ events, eg the sprints, 800m, will always leave a bigger impression than greatness in one of the more esoteric ones.
Of all the blue ribbon events, Olympic gold in the 100m is superlative; 4 years of training meets a reckoning decided in under 10s. No pressure then.
Thought he’d been mentioned already, but unbelievably he hasn’t. So not athletics but about as current as you can get right now - Marcel Hirscher. I was watching Ski Sunday earlier when he won his 67th World Cup race in the slalom after winning his 66th yesterday in the giant slalom. And let’s not leave out his female equivalent, Lindsey Vonn.
Excellent article about Hirscher’s dominance below that also references Bolt, Nadal etc. And regarding the latter, talk about dominating a surface...
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2019/01/13/sport/marcel-hirs...
PS. Didn’t mention Ed Moses before as I felt his name is synonymous with dominance!
100m yeah it's impressive.
I'll give you Jonathon Edwards; multiple Olympic, European and world champs golds, plus he still holds the WR after 22 years.
> Johnson*
> I can’t think of any, without cheating and googling. Heike Dreschler springs (get it?) to mind but not sure if I’m right. Who was the Norwegian woman in the marathon?
Greta Waitz or Ingrid Kristiansen, both pretty dominant, but not totally in periods that overlapped.
Paula Radcliffe won her first three marathons, setting a world best or world record in each race, in the same period she also won multiple world cross country championships.
Flo Jo was dominant, but dodgy as hell, her sister-in-law Jackie Joyner-Kersee was totally dominant, but obviously has suspicions by association, obviously a whole list of eastern bloc athletes dominated, but were very dodgy.
Hirscher needs a few more yet. Stenmark took 86 firsts on the world cup circuit, plus another 69 2nds or 3rds.
Both are good, almost in a class of their own. Imagine if they had raced in the same era.
I’m an athletics fan, particularly distance running (5,000-marathon, plus XC) basically Nurmi, Zatopek, Gebreselassie and Bekele are gods. Farah is close to that, Eliud Kipchoge is probably already there.
Look at Bekele’s XC results, quite staggering!
> 100m yeah it's impressive.
> I'll give you Jonathon Edwards; multiple Olympic, European and world champs golds, plus he still holds the WR after 22 years.
Good call. Perhaps more towards a niche event, but given advances in training and fitness, for his record to still stand for over 20 years is exceptional.
He tested positive in pre olympic drug tests at least once-covered up by the US track and Field bunch.
John I find much overlooked is Seb Coe's world record for the 800mts which he held for 17 years. That's dominance for me. Showing my age I guess...and admittedly he's not female.
Marit Bjorgen in X-C skiing. Totally dominant for ages in a physically brutal sport.
Kipchoge has won all bar of the marathons he has take part in.
In none athletics seb loeb in WRC
Coe of course was never Olympic champion at 800m, he was however double Olympic champion at his weaker event, 1,500m.
Big Daddy.
Another vote for Alexander 'The Experiment' Karelin. Undefeated for 13 years in international competition, including a six-year stint where he didn’t give up a single point. Can't really think of a parallel to that
Also he was fundamentally unique in that he was the only competitor in the superheavy weight class strong enough to lift an opponent off the mat when they had gone to ground and slam them (the Karelin lift); previously such moves had only been pulled off in the lighter weight classes.
Heather McKay, squash, undefeated for 16 years.
> I’m an athletics fan, particularly distance running (5,000-marathon, plus XC) basically Nurmi, Zatopek, Gebreselassie and Bekele are gods. Farah is close to that, Eliud Kipchoge is probably already there.
> Look at Bekele’s XC results, quite staggering!
Farah is probably a better championship athlete than most of them, but never set a world record. Gebreselassie won 6 consecutive world or Olympic titles, but also found time for 27 world records (10 proper ones) over a huge distances, some of which were sensational - 11 seconds off the 5000m record. So yes I’d agree with you there.
David Rudisha is also exceptional. 4 Olympic / world titles and the 3 fastest times in history.
Both in truly competitive disciplines.
The problem for the women athletes is that it’s almost impossible for a clean athlete to take a world record, the records were pushed so far in the 1980s, but if Jackie Joyner was clean, then she fits the bill.
I’d have thought the answer to the original question - ie which female athlete rendered her competitors powerless for the longest period - was Yelena Isinbayeva.
If we’re going outside athletics while staying reasonably mainstream, Simone Biles’ five years essentially unbeaten in gymnastics is worth ten in many sports.
jcm
Chrissie Wellington is totally inspirational . Her book "A life without Limits" is well worth reading. detailing her journey from a troubled teen with an eating disorder through to an unbeaten world champion in a very tough sport.
> I’d have thought the answer to the original question - ie which female athlete rendered her competitors powerless for the longest period - was Yelena Isinbayeva.
yep that was my thoughts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelena_Isinbayeva
it's been an interesting list/thread
My vote is for Al Oerter. In the Olympic discus ,from 1956-68, he won four consecutive gold medals while setting new Olympic records each time.
Can I be the first to nomimate Jasmin Paris?
Can anyone think of any other event, where a woman has taken 25% off the existing woman's record and 13% off the men's record in a field with 2 previous winners both of whom are top class endurance athletes.
> My vote is for Al Oerter. In the Olympic discus ,from 1956-68, he won four consecutive gold medals while setting new Olympic records each time.
Good shout! I was just going to suggest him. Also, as others have said, Jonathan Edwards triple jump and Daley Thompson decathlon won just about everything they entered: Olympic, World, European and set world records. Valery Brumel high jump in the 60s comes to mind. Also, in the late 70s, Steve Ovett regularly destroyed world class fields for several years with incredible bursts of acceleration - you can check it out on You Tube. But for my money Daley Thompson would get the prize, winning so many titles and setting world records in such a technical and tough event in which the slightest mistake spells disaster.
Just to emphasise how good Steve Ovett was, check this out. That's John Walker, Olympic champion and world record holder, stepping off the track. youtube.com/watch?v=0W7GogWlv7Q&
Incredible last lap burst of speed. I'd forgotten how quick he was.
> Incredible last lap burst of speed. I'd forgotten how quick he was.
At their peak, Coe and Ovett were doing 52 sec last laps in the 1500m, which Mo Farah was able to do over the last lap of a major 10,000m final.
Farah won every global track final at 5 and 10k between 2011 and 2017, which included the Olympic double at successive Games, something that only Lasse Virén had done. When he won his World and Olympic 5,000m titles (which involves heats) he was competing against fresh athletes while having a winning 10,000m run in his legs from just a few days before, and they still couldn’t out race or out pace him. Not one for setting world records, but Farah could win races in a way that we may not see again for a very long time.
> Can I be the first to nomimate Jasmin Paris?
> Can anyone think of any other event, where a woman has taken 25% off the existing woman's record and 13% off the men's record in a field with 2 previous winners both of whom are top class endurance athletes.
+1; this achievement is inspirational and I think will actually inspire.
Having read your post four times, I think you end up by asking about a female who has dominated for a spell in the field of athletics, which means track and field to most people .
My first thought was Flo Jo but I remember a spell when Marita Koch was absolutely invincible and , for all the anti- Eastern bloc allegations of drug abuse, I believe her 400 m WR still stands.
> Not one for setting world records, but Farah could win races in a way that we may not see again for a very long time.
I agree. No world records but he does hold national or European records for pretty much every distance from 1500m to marathon (including ER at 1500, 10k, half marathon and marathon!), his European record for 1500m was set in 2013 when he was at the height of his 5000/10000m abilities and he set the half marathon record less than 2 years later.
His mix of endurance and speed was exceptional and seemed to make it incredibly difficult for anyone to beat him in the races that mattered.
His association and reluctance to move away from salazar for me damages his legacy. Sadly
> At their peak, Coe and Ovett were doing 52 sec last laps in the 1500m, which Mo Farah was able to do over the last lap of a major 10,000m final.
Approx 30 years after Coe & Ovett: less than 30 years before them was when Bannister ran the 1st sub 4 minute mile.
I guess this just shows the progression in times that advances in training and professionalism have brought.
> Approx 30 years after Coe & Ovett: less than 30 years before them was when Bannister ran the 1st sub 4 minute mile.
> I guess this just shows the progression in times that advances in training and professionalism have brought.
Not necessarily, it can actually be easier to put in a very fast lap in longer events than shorter, due to there being basically a period of steady laps prior to the "big push" at the end, whilst the 800/1500 tends to have much faster laps prior to the bell.
Miruts Yifter (nicknamed "The Shifter") apparently put in a last lap of 48 seconds in a 10,000 Championship way back when I was running, but wouldn't have had a chance against Coe/Ovett at 800. For that matter, way back in 1964 Basil Heatley put in a last lap (when finally on the track) of 58 seconds in the Marathon, to overtake the runner in front and win the silver medal.
> At their peak, Coe and Ovett were doing 52 sec last laps in the 1500m
Actually, in both the 800 and 1500 at the 1980 Moscow Olympics, won by Ovett and Coe respectively, I believe that the last laps were closer to 50 seconds, after of course, earlier laps at a funereal pace.
Just checked, not only does Koch's record stand but no-one this side of the millenium has come within a second of her. It wasn't a one off, as a study of her times shows that on at least three other occasions she turned out performances better than Perec, the French athlete who is credited with being third fastest overall at this distance.
Marita Koch was pretty much as dirty as you can get in PED terms. Her World Record still stands, but most of the women’s World Records are either known or very strongly suspected of being as a result of PED use. There is a definate case for striking some of them from the record books.
Are you including Flo Jo in this
Certainly some major questions to ask about Flo Jo, not quite the evidence associated with Koch, but very suspect.
I dont normally venture onto the running forum, but I just watched 'Running for Good' the film about Fiona Oakes, ultra marathon runner extraordinaire, winner and multiple course record breaker.
All with no right knee cap.
Absolutely extraordinary.
Me.
Max Woosnam, in terms of the sheer number of sports in which Woosnam excelled in, no-one comes close. His list of achievements include winning both gold and silver at the 1920 Olympics, winning at Wimbledon, captaining the British Davis Cup team, captaining Manchester City, captaining the English national football team, finishing as a runner-up in the Football League, hitting a century at Lords and compiling a 147 break in snooker. Often described as the greatest British athlete of all-time, Woosnam famously once beat Charlie Chaplain in a game of table tennis using a butter knife instead of a bat.
> Max Woosnam, in terms of the sheer number of sports in which Woosnam excelled in, no-one comes close. His list of achievements include winning both gold and silver at the 1920 Olympics, winning at Wimbledon, captaining the British Davis Cup team, captaining Manchester City, captaining the English national football team, finishing as a runner-up in the Football League, hitting a century at Lords and compiling a 147 break in snooker. Often described as the greatest British athlete of all-time, Woosnam famously once beat Charlie Chaplain in a game of table tennis using a butter knife instead of a bat.
In reply to Calv i I just cant believe I've never heard of this guy before, surely this is the end of the discussion, no one comes close to this guy! The 147 in snooker says a lot, because that benchmark has not changed over the years. This guy should be on our next bank note! Ben
The 147 in snooker says a lot, because that benchmark has not changed over the years. This guy should be on our next bank note! Ben
So he was good on slate, but...?
> The 147 in snooker says a lot, because that benchmark has not changed over the years.
That reminds me of other discussions about what distinguishes a sport from a game.
Is there incremental progress in a sport, but not in a game? In track and field, demonstrably there is progress, but is that true in football, or tennis? How about darts and snooker?
A bit, maybe, like what distinguishes a science (there is progress) from a non-science (there isn't).
> Jo Pavey has just announced she’s heading for her 6th Olympics.
She'd feature in my list of most inspirational athletes, definitely.
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