2016 Rio Olympics - open thread

[AGC]

LMAO i have a strong prejudice against olympic swimming because of the australian obsession with the 'sport' .. even worse than acole i think, cos I dont even try to be balanced about it. bolt all the way. However, i love the idea of comparing athletes .. who is the greatest of all time? Who even makes the top 5? Does Lebron make the cut?

Greatest athlete of all time (i.e. pure athletic ability) or greatest sportsman? LeBron probably makes the cut on the former but not the latter (yet).

[T0ddday]

LMAO i have a strong prejudice against olympic swimming because of the australian obsession with the 'sport' .. even worse than acole i think, cos I dont even try to be balanced about it. bolt all the way. However, i love the idea of comparing athletes .. who is the greatest of all time? Who even makes the top 5? Does Lebron make the cut?

Greatest athlete of all time (i.e. pure athletic ability) or greatest sportsman? LeBron probably makes the cut on the former but not the latter (yet).

Lol I'd argue the opposite.  Lebrons finals performance of leading both teams in every category and coming back from 3-1 might put him in the running for being one of the greatest sportsmen but he will never be close to the greatest athlete because he will never try not be tested as he is a basketball player...  It's something your either love or hate but there are a few sports will the skill component is so high and the season is so grueling that athletic players simply have to spend so much time on technical skill, recovery and strategy that there leaves no room for anything else... Really the only two off hand I can think of is basketball and maybe a soccer midfielder...

Lebron certainly is tall, strong, fast, and able to jump high.  From th eye test you can imagine he could make a great football player or track athlete - but as his potential will never be tapped it is pure speculation...

Because it's so important to be able to score a ball in the hoop as a basketball player the sport is really an athletic version of archery...  I mean at the end of last season it seemed pretty apparent how much better Steph Curry was than Lebron and this is based on nothing more than being better at making shots... That is however, the name of the game and players must prioritize it...  It's a wonder they still seem so athletic despite the fact that they can't put a premium on it... I mean Russell Westbrook seems like an amazing athlete - but where would he be if he was a 60% free throw shooter and knocked down open threes at 20%?   Actually being good at basketball doesn't have that much to do with athletic ability - we can see proof of this when professional Dunkers out NBA guys to shame in a skill that is actually semi relevant to the game (dunking).

As far as greatest athlete of all time... Maybe this is taking the easy way out... But IMO the greatest endurance athletes are top triathletes and the greatest overall athlete is Ashton Eaton... I mean hos event is really the only that truly tests exactly what an athlete is across multiple tests of ability and he is clearly King.

One thing that absolutely totally SUCKS is that SA is stupid and didn't field a 4x400m team for these olympics.  They had one w pistorius but didn't get their act together this year.  God I would have loved to watch WVN run a 42.5 anchor leg and shock at least a few countries. Instead we won't see him on a big stage for probably a year.  Depressing.

[Mikey]

LMAO i have a strong prejudice against olympic swimming because of the australian obsession with the 'sport' .. even worse than acole i think, cos I dont even try to be balanced about it. bolt all the way. However, i love the idea of comparing athletes .. who is the greatest of all time? Who even makes the top 5? Does Lebron make the cut?

Phelps is the greatest Olympian of all time (23 Gold medals) but Bolt is definitely a better athlete. Everyone can run, and it doesn't matter whether you are in China, Russia, Ivory Coast or the US etc. You don't need any special equipment and it doesn't require any specialized skills. It is the purest form of performance. Even if people wanted to make a counter-argument that anybody can swim I think you'd just need to look at the various sports Phelps and Bolt could excel at and you'd chose Bolt over Phelps for your football and basketball team any day of the week over Phelps. I don't really like comparing them though because they are both masters at their chosen sports.

[Mikey]

LMAO i have a strong prejudice against olympic swimming because of the australian obsession with the 'sport' .. even worse than acole i think, cos I dont even try to be balanced about it. bolt all the way. However, i love the idea of comparing athletes .. who is the greatest of all time? Who even makes the top 5? Does Lebron make the cut?

damn .. why'd you have to bring lebron into this? lulz.



from an article LBSS linked on fb:



sick!@@!$

http://screengrabber.deadspin.com/wayde-van-niekerk-smashes-michael-johnsons-17-year-old-1785282344?utm_campaign=socialflow_deadspin_facebook&utm_source=deadspin_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

That was an epic performance. Atm everybody is caught up in the Bolt hysteria so the performance has been overshadowed, but in the future people will look back and realise just how incredible that 400m was. Wayde is a young sprinter as well so there is still plenty of potential for him to break his own WR.

Can't wait for the 200m now!!!

[Mikey]

[AGC]

Lol I'd argue the opposite.  Lebrons finals performance of leading both teams in every category and coming back from 3-1 might put him in the running for being one of the greatest sportsmen but he will never be close to the greatest athlete because he will never try not be tested as he is a basketball player... 

Lebron certainly is tall, strong, fast, and able to jump high.  From th eye test you can imagine he could make a great football player or track athlete - but as his potential will never be tapped it is pure speculation...

Of course you do! Haha. That's why the forum has been so much fun lately. I personally just can't put LeBron top 5 all-time as a sportsman (yet). That series was his magnum opus no doubt, but it's one series in his career. If GSW are as good as advertised and he beats them again then he's easily in there. But it's so crowded at the top. Jordan, Ali, any one of Pele/Maradona/Messi, Don Bradman (google him, statistically off the charts in a sport played by tens of millions that hasn't changed fundamentally for centuries), any one of Federer/Nadal/Djokovic and now Bolt...all from sports where the barriers to entry are low and are played at least throughout the developed world and some developing regions. Not even mentioning Gretzky or any NFL all-timers whose sport is restricted to certain populations.

Athletically though, sure, speculation between sports is so difficult because of the demands on time for each sport. It's still fun though. I agree that Ashton Eaton is the greatest tested athlete of all time essentially by definition. For me LeBron is a top 5 what-if athlete.

[LBSS]

i'm with t0ddday, ashton eaton is the greatest athlete of all time.

another knock on phelps as greatest athlete of all time: swimming is awkward for humans. we're bad at it! even watching katie ledecky (who is arguably a greater swimmer than phelps, historically speaking, given how thoroughly she's trashed her competition over the last few years*), you realize just how thrashy and inefficient we are in the water as a species. humans are built to run, and even though we're slower than our four-legged friends, at our fastest we still look graceful. i don't know, call it the aesthetic argument to gracefulness.

that said, phelps is still, empirically speaking, the greatest olympic champion. obviously.

*also she went grew up like 20 minutes from me and went to my ex's high school. thanks to her and phelps maryland is still top-5 in gold medals won as a country.

[LBSS]

not rio specific, but someone shared this on fb, cool story: http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/the-white-man-in-that-photo/

[seifullaah73]

Im a bit late, but I couldn't watch the finals yesterday, so I recorded it for today and wow the 400m WR awesome, for me this was better than the 100m finals, even though the anticipation was greater but after the 400m performance I enjoyed more.

Then the Tennis, COMEON ANDY, wow he just force fed del potro a taste of his own medicine, which was persistence and long rallies, really heavily endurance focused.

When i saw the 100m semi's I knew bolt was going to win, how easily he ran 9.84 while gatlin struggled to get under 9.9 until the 100m finals.

EDIT: nice story lbss, I upvoted it and it looks as if adarq upvoted too around the same time, as it changed to 2 from 0 lol.

[T0ddday]

Lol I'd argue the opposite.  Lebrons finals performance of leading both teams in every category and coming back from 3-1 might put him in the running for being one of the greatest sportsmen but he will never be close to the greatest athlete because he will never try not be tested as he is a basketball player... 

Lebron certainly is tall, strong, fast, and able to jump high.  From th eye test you can imagine he could make a great football player or track athlete - but as his potential will never be tapped it is pure speculation...

Of course you do! Haha. That's why the forum has been so much fun lately. I personally just can't put LeBron top 5 all-time as a sportsman (yet). That series was his magnum opus no doubt, but it's one series in his career. If GSW are as good as advertised and he beats them again then he's easily in there. But it's so crowded at the top. Jordan, Ali, any one of Pele/Maradona/Messi, Don Bradman (google him, statistically off the charts in a sport played by tens of millions that hasn't changed fundamentally for centuries), any one of Federer/Nadal/Djokovic and now Bolt...all from sports where the barriers to entry are low and are played at least throughout the developed world and some developing regions. Not even mentioning Gretzky or any NFL all-timers whose sport is restricted to certain populations.

Athletically though, sure, speculation between sports is so difficult because of the demands on time for each sport. It's still fun though. I agree that Ashton Eaton is the greatest tested athlete of all time essentially by definition. For me LeBron is a top 5 what-if athlete.

I don't disagree that Lebron might not be a top five sportsman yet... Moreso just that he will never be a top five athlete because he isn't tested...

I've heard of Bradman and he certainly was great.  I'm just averse to having athletes on the list who played before civil rights personally.  Besides that your list is pretty good although I think being a sportsman is not just being good at the game but being transcendent in multiple ways.   That's why any list without the late Muhhamed Ali is a shame!  He is maybe the most important athlete of all time...

[LBSS]

let's not forget about AI. i remember years ago bill simmons making the argument that iverson, had he grown up in a different place or chosen a different direction as a kid, could have been one of the greatest soccer players of all time, one of the greatest welterweight boxers of all time, one of the greatest cornerbacks of all time, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, one of the greatest (insert non-height/weight-dependent identity here) of all time. he was a freak's freak.

cool to learn about don bradman. gonna need to know about him in pakistan, they're nuts for cricket over there.

[AGC]

let's not forget about AI. i remember years ago bill simmons making the argument that iverson, had he grown up in a different place or chosen a different direction as a kid, could have been one of the greatest soccer players of all time, one of the greatest welterweight boxers of all time, one of the greatest cornerbacks of all time, one of the greatest tennis players of all time, one of the greatest (insert non-height/weight-dependent identity here) of all time. he was a freak's freak.

cool to learn about don bradman. gonna need to know about him in pakistan, they're nuts for cricket over there.

I actually was going to mention AI as being one of those what-if athletes. Watched a good documentary about him the other week.

Yeah Bradman is basically considered a god in India, although you'd hear about Sachin Tendulkar a lot more. Probably similar in Pakistan I would think.

[adarqui]

^^ or deion sanders / bo jackson.

Lebron and AI were both basketball + football stars in h.s. We'll probably see far less 2-sport athletes where one of their 2 is NFL football.. with all of the risks involved, just focus on the less dangerous sport.

[adarqui]

really cool usain bolt vs gatlin 100m finals info-graphic:

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/08/15/sports/olympics/usain-bolt-mens-100-meters-final.html

[AGC]

Lol I'd argue the opposite.  Lebrons finals performance of leading both teams in every category and coming back from 3-1 might put him in the running for being one of the greatest sportsmen but he will never be close to the greatest athlete because he will never try not be tested as he is a basketball player... 

Lebron certainly is tall, strong, fast, and able to jump high.  From th eye test you can imagine he could make a great football player or track athlete - but as his potential will never be tapped it is pure speculation...

Of course you do! Haha. That's why the forum has been so much fun lately. I personally just can't put LeBron top 5 all-time as a sportsman (yet). That series was his magnum opus no doubt, but it's one series in his career. If GSW are as good as advertised and he beats them again then he's easily in there. But it's so crowded at the top. Jordan, Ali, any one of Pele/Maradona/Messi, Don Bradman (google him, statistically off the charts in a sport played by tens of millions that hasn't changed fundamentally for centuries), any one of Federer/Nadal/Djokovic and now Bolt...all from sports where the barriers to entry are low and are played at least throughout the developed world and some developing regions. Not even mentioning Gretzky or any NFL all-timers whose sport is restricted to certain populations.

Athletically though, sure, speculation between sports is so difficult because of the demands on time for each sport. It's still fun though. I agree that Ashton Eaton is the greatest tested athlete of all time essentially by definition. For me LeBron is a top 5 what-if athlete.

I don't disagree that Lebron might not be a top five sportsman yet... Moreso just that he will never be a top five athlete because he isn't tested...

I've heard of Bradman and he certainly was great.  I'm just averse to having athletes on the list who played before civil rights personally.  Besides that your list is pretty good although I think being a sportsman is not just being good at the game but being transcendent in multiple ways.   That's why any list without the late Muhhamed Ali is a shame!  He is maybe the most important athlete of all time...

I can totally understand the civil rights thing. His career probably would have been different if he played 1970 onward vs 1928-1948. But his statistical dominance relative to his peers at the time is incredible:

http://michaelnielsen.org/blog/the-most-remarkable-graph-in-the-history-of-sport/

not rio specific, but someone shared this on fb, cool story: http://www.filmsforaction.org/articles/the-white-man-in-that-photo/

 

Was great to see when you posted that. Ever since I learned about Peter Norman's story I thought he should be on our currency! I think less than 10% of under-30s here in Australia would even know who he was.