What is the second greatest athletic performance ever?

Niners wrote:

Seko won 9 major marathons. That is the top athletics performance in the history of humanity. A miracle.

Bill Rodgers crushing Seko on the hills of Boston to win in a U.S. record and course record time

Michael Johnson's 42.9 split in 1993.

http://runningmens.com/42-9-400m-michael-johnson-1993-world-championship-relays-both-men-women/

There is a reason they now refer to great performances as "Beamon-esque."

Geb's 12:44 - yes it got dropped over and over in the years following. But as a one time performance it was revolutionary. Note that no one has run that fast in the last 5 years. It would appear greater if the record lasted longer.

Ben Johsnon's 9.79 - The 9.83 the year before was more shocking. It took 15 years for the record to go from 9.95 to 9.93 and then Bam! 9.83

Of course both records were wiped form the books

Bolt's 9.58 would look even more amazing if he would have slowed even more the year before and "only" run 9.72 in Beijing.

'I've watched Komen's 3000. I think it is the greatest of all the records'

I would agree if it was a championship distance. He was maybe unlucky in that respect because that was his best distance

My top 3 in no order

I'll go with Michael Johnson's 200m as it was such a huge margin over the previous record

Seb Coe's 800m record. For the same reason he knocked seconds of the previous record with his 2 world records

Can't make up my mind for other 1:

Sergey Bubka- he's still miles higher than the vaulters now

Jonathan Edwards TJ

Jan Zelezný JT

Paula's Marathon. The only woman who really hammered the pace for the entire distance

There are too many expecially if you go back in time:

4:12¾ Walter George 1886 another 20 yrs until they caught up with that time

1:46.6 Rudolph Harbig 1939! Would still get you on the yearly IAAF table front page over 70 yrs on

http://www.iaaf.org/statistics/toplists/inout=o/age=n/season=2010/sex=M/all=n/legal=A/disc=800/detail.html

powerofreason wrote:

hurdler. wrote:

Edwin Moses: 122 consecutive 400 hurdles victories, 107 of those were finals.

For dominance over a period of time in a single event, Moses is unquestionably the king of the hill. To win that many in a row is almost unfathomable.

Maybe another vegetarian could try...

I gotta go with Ali over Foreman in the rumble in the jungle.

I'm with AverageJoe on this one. In terms of sheer dominance over all one's rivals, Secretariat at Belmont; no other performance by any species comes close. Sham was quite possibly one of the top 5 horses in 50 years.

I do recall a few times when Michael Johnson was so far ahead of the 2nd place guy in the 400, that he more or less jogged in the last 50-100 meters. There were races where he could have taken AT LEAST another 0.5 sec of his own world record had he ran it all the way out. Seriously, he left a lot on the table during the race where he set the WR.

Beamon's HJ surely belongs in the running.... but I'd have to go with one of Bolt's WR, including even the straight 150 he ran on a city street in England.

And while not in the same league as today's athletes (due to improvement in training methods & sports science), Jim Thorpe's Olympic golds in the Decathlon AND Pentathlon at the same games might be the greatest athletic performance of all time for a human. Thorpe was the Secretariat of T&F athletes.

In case anyone wants to see it, here is the race in question. Absolutely phenomenal. He and Sham already had 10 lengths on the field by the time they hit the backstretch. I love how they have to back out the camera after a while just to keep him in the same shot as any other other horse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu5_nuIEgkw

One interesting aspect of this. He ran every quarter faster than the previous one for the whole race.

Dean K has to be up there somewhere

Beck Weather survives Everest

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beck_Weathers

Too stupid a stunt to be #1

Aron Ralston

Got trapped in a narrow desert canyon by a large boulder. Claimed he did not sleep for 127 straight hours. Drank his own pee water. Forced two bones to break in the trapped arm by pulling against the boulder. Severed his arm using a dull utility tool, not only the knife, but also the pliers on the ligaments.

The guy is a major egomaniac. I don't know how much of his story to actually believe, but the arm cutting off part is real.

17-year-old runs 12:53 indoors!