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

Jim Ryun 3:55.3, set winning the 1965 AAU Championship race ahead of Olympic gold medalist and former WR holder Peter Snell, was a high school record that stood for 36 years!

A total stud. Also seems to be a very nice guy.

I will say he is probably more dominant in his sport than some of the other names mentioned, however I won’t go as far as calling him the greatest athlete.

An athlete posses many skills such as, speed, strength, endurance, agility, hand eye coordination, mental fortitude, skill. To me the greatest athlete would have high levels in all of these things and not just a few. The greatest athlete can be thrown into pretty much any physical challenge and do well.

Honestly the greatest Athlete is probably someone who is not even the best at their sport, but is really good and would also be really good in other sports.

Tl;Dr Michael Phelps is a great athlete, but being the best at one sport doesn’t make you the greatest athlete ever. definitely the best swimmer of all time though

Rocky Marciano 49-0 that is DOMINANCE.

There is so little competition in swimming relative to many other sports, so nah.

he's not even the best swimmer though. The best swimmer is the most dominant and/or WR holder in the 100m freestyle

So the best swimmer is either David Popovici, Caleb Dressel, or Cesar Cielo. Depending on how you look at it. Cielo's is a super suit record but his performance solid.

Also Matt Biondi at one point had like 15 of the worlds top 20 100m free times, so he is also on the list.

there are too many swimming events, and too many of phelps accomplishments are in relays and stupid medley events

add the smr, 4x200, 60m, 300m, some stupid sprint pentathlon thing to the olympic track events and someone like bolt walks away with just as much hardware

What I mean is best at his sport- should go w/o saying.

not many sports more niche than swimming

Got on to say the exact same thing. Glad someone else did it for me.

Is this a running or swimming site ?

If we place an emphasis on speed/agility/coordination, Allen Iverson would be on the contenders list.

I agree with this.

To be great at swimming, in addition to the right genes and hard work you need regular, year round access to a pool, a private coach or instructor starting at a very young age. These factors alone will exclude the majority of the world's population.

Contrast that with running which has an extremely low barrier to entry - you need a pair of shoes and a place to run outside.

This isn't meant to diminish Phelps, but I have a hard time putting any swimmer on the list of best athletes.

You know how I know Jordan is the best?

Because every argument like this starts by comparing an athlete too Jordan, not the other way around. The argument for them needs to made by comparing them to Jordan, but no argument needs to be made for Jordan. It's self evident.

It's probably a gymnastics athlete.

To all the people calling swimming a niche sport, I'm pretty sure there were a lot more kids in my swimming summer leagues than there were in any local running programs. If there were any local running programs.

Roger Federer is the best athlete of all time

Oh Really? but at some point everyone in school lines up and races each other at some point whether it be gym class, recess or suicides during soccer practice. How much swimming talent goes between the cracks because no one ever bothers to try racing it? Poor comparison.