Michael Phelps is history's best athlete. Not Jordan, Ali, etc..

The level of swimming participation is high and among the 285,000 kids on swim teams from 6-12, they train a lot harder than most sports. However, the team participation numbers are much greater in other sports. 4 million play basketball, 3.4 million baseball (but those aren't necessarily on teams), 1.7 million soccer, 1.5 million golf somehow, 332k track, about the same in softball. So, track is right about at the level of the swim team participation for youth, but I'd bet that the swim team #'s involve much more participation than the track #'s, which could just be total participation in track meets.

For me an all time “Best athlete” needs to be stellar in multiple endeavors. Jackie Robinson excelled not only in Baseball, but Football, the Long Jump, Tennis, Basketball and endured all that he faced! Another Jackie, Joyner Kersee won a collegiate Basketball title at UCLA, set WR’s in the Heptathlon (still over 30 years later) and Long Jump(still #2 all time). Many of her Heptathlon marks were of a really really high caliber. Jordan, Federer, Serena, Phelps and so many were great at their own sport but…

Swimming is ranking at the 17th place in the list of most popular sports in the world.
Even boxing and Tracks & Field are better ranked.

Pretty sure Winfield was drafted by the NFL too. While he made the HOF as an outfielder, he was the greatest pitcher in college baseball while at Minnesota.

Bo Jackson was arguably the best tailback in the NFL and the best outfielder in MLB at the same time. While most the other greats mentioned here were known for their tireless work ethics and perfectionism, Jackson achieved his unprecedented level of greatness almost entirely from raw athletic ability.

So much focus on this thread on Americans and American sports. The world's most popular sport by far is proper football or as you call it soccer. A game that requires each player to have more skill and intelligence than a quarter back, speed, the endurance of a middle distance runner, strength, power and athleticism. The greatest male athlete ever was very likely a footballer. Pele for my money.

Nope. The end.

This reminds of what a tv commentator once said about Carl Lewis. He noted that Lewis was not nearly as popular as other well-known athletes but them claimed that decades from now Lewis would be the one people remember. That simply did not happen. Lewis ran fast. Great track athlete. But that's all.

I believe he only won one individual gold medal in a freestyle event. So he wasn’t really that great of a pure swimmer.

He was clearly a versatile swimmer, but all the strokes other than freestyle are just made-up non-optimal ways of swimming. There’s just no way of knowing what any other athlete could’ve done if their sport rewarded this kind of skill.

What? Phelps set the world record in the 200m freestyle! Twice! And the American record in the 100m freestyle! He was a fantastic freestyler, and clearly the most versatile swimmer of all time.

Jim Thorpe

The label 'GOAT' tends to be generational. We think the one we see now is the 'one'.

Greg E. Louganis for Honorable Mention at least? Swept the Olympic games twice consecutively—once while seriously injured! Cant imagine why his name hasn’t come up…

I see everyone hasn't come to consensus so far in this discussion! :-) One thing that is tricky in comparing athletes in different sports and different eras is the quality of their competitors, something which has nothing to do with their own talent and hard work. (I don't see a lot of posts about Alain Mimoun here, and many of you may not even know who he was but, had there not been an Emil Zatopek, Alain might have dominated an era of running). So, to take an example - and his drug taking was stupid and, according to my swimming expert friends, unnecessary, due to his superior stroke mechanics - had Sun Yang been at parallel state of development as a swimmer and competing simultaneously, Michael Phelps might not have some of those metals that relate to free style individual or relay events,.

The two people I've heard mentioned so far who were both dominant in their specific sports but also incredibly versatile and possessing great athleticism, were Jim Thorpe and Wilt Chamberlain. But I'm not arguing for any individual as the greatest athlete *overall* and the "greatest in their event" if measured by medals seems too dependent on happenstance of whom competition was at the time. Edwin Moses and Eliot Kipchoge are certainly contenders in the "dominating their event for a long time" department!

I know I am sort of off-the-walk-in some of my recommendations for goat athletes. But I feel compelled ti keep such topics from becoming macho feats, when so little is ever said about some of the very greatest. Not just history: great athletes: Babe Didrickson (sp),Fanny Blankerskeorn (sp), RAy Ewry, Horace Ashenfelter, et Al (Al Oerter!😀)

Fests not feats or feets!

Well that was a waste of time trying to watch that clusterf××k of a timing site.

Vasily Alekseyev - Russian Weight Lifter. 80 world records, 81 Soviet. (His physique won't score points on this site!)

He was smart though. He got a bonus for every record, so he would only set it by a few ounces knowing he could beat it next time.

Stop it.

Competitive Swimming is an activity. Few countries even have swimming pools. The number of competitors is miniscule.

Next you'll find a superior curling champion, or a xc country skiier. Its a minor sport where all the events look similar.

Its like the difference between Magnum and Blue Steel.

Just have an event where everyone swims 1500 m, and they award medals along the way. The fastest at 50, 100, 200, 400, etc.

One race get it all over with and get back to watching a non - niche sport.

No. Phelps never had that kind of dominance in a single event. For that, you need to look at Ledecky, who currently owns 28 fastest times in 800. (She has also won the last three Olympics and the last five World Championships.)