Allyson Felix and Bolt ranked on ESPN's most dominant athletes of the last 20 years

These lists are always nonsense. The logic is always missing. Has LeBron really dominated basketball, he maybe the best player but his team's haven't dominated as such. No Nadal but a Djokovic. Nascar is well below Formula One.

El G. I think he only lost 4 races between 1998 and 2004

TAA wrote:

El G. I think he only lost 5 races between 1998 and 2004

Fixed

I got into a heavy twitter argument on this topic. In terms of "dominance", Allyson Felix really isnt that big of a threat individually. I argued that Brittney Reese is the most dominant track athlete in track and field, as she has 6 gold Long Jump titles (1 gold and silver Olympic medals) and 2 silvers. In her 10 year career she has never gotten lower than second place in a major championship. She is more deserving in terms of dominance than resume as Allyson Felix. Then again, AF medal cabinet is mostly relay medals and, as you said, he only idv. gold medal is from 2012 200m, an event I would say is completely out of her range now with Shaune Miller dropping down, as well as Torie Bowie. How deep the Americans 200m is recently is out of her reach. Even in the 400m her contestability is beginning to wain.

But if we're talking about resumes, there are others with way more dominance and achievements under them. Focusing on the women's' side.

Croatian Disc Thrower Sandra Perkovic comes to mind. She's extremely dominant and has thrown the farthest of any woman in 25 years in the event. she has been ranked #1 in the world 4 times, back to back olympic champion (2012-2016) 3 times WC medalist and has won every European Champs since 2010. Now that is dominant.

Polish Hammer Thrower Anita Wlodarczyk. Well, for starters she has the world record. She's the first woman to throw over 80m and in fact has gotten close to the men's NR (Albeit a lower weight) She has 14 indv. medals (10 of them gold). Back to back Oly. gold medalist, 3x World Champion since 2009, Euro champ since 2012 --- who knows how many times she broke her own WR. She's considered (and is) the greatest hammer thrower of all time.

I stated Brittney Reese so I won't go back into her.

Columbian Triple Jumper Caterine Ibarguen

Shelly Ann Frasier Price was extremely dominant Indoors and outdoors.

Australian 100h Sally Pearson easily could have been put on this list

Kiwi Shot Putter Valerie Adams --- Like jesus dude, go look at her medal count it's ridiculous. She's the first woman in history to win four consecutive indv World titles. You know who esle did that? Usain Bolt.

There were a lot of TF athletes that could have been put on this list, but you know why. ESPN knows that the general AMERICAN public wouldn't recognize any of the names I listed at all. Allyson Felix is a household name for some reason, for why I'll never know, same with LoLo Jones (who I'm glad is hated by most of the general Pro Athletes, especially 100m hurdlers. She deserves it). So, basically. ESPN pulled this list and didn't take into consideration the athletes with the real credentials.

TAA wrote:

El G. I think he only lost 4 races between 1998 and 2004

They wouldn't begin to recognise this. Track & Field, to them, is only about the sprints.

I dislike Mo but only a fool would keep him off that list.

Joe Calzaghe - retired undefeated and a world champion continually from 1997 to 2008. Not dominant enough? Phelps?

Over past 20 years? They measured these by taking an important stat (ex: number of consecutive championsions won), and then calculating how many standard deviations above the average champion that person was. Mo isn't that far above Kenny B, Geb, Kemboi, Dibaba, etc. if we are talking distance track events.

Mo Show wrote:

I dislike Mo but only a fool would keep him off that list.

I read the ESPN entry on Felix for that list.

The primary thing they seemed to focus on in the article was Felix's claim that she earned her medals "the right way", aka, by not doping. Granted, I don't think any of the women who have beaten Felix for the metals have failed any doping tests either, but it sounds like Felix is skeptical of some of them and the article shows that bias in there.

The secondary thing the article focused on was Felix's age - her first silver medal when she was still in high school, to her currently being 32 years old and still winning medals. It's impressive for her to still be on relay teams at 30+ years old, especially for sprints, so I can accept ESPN's argument on that one.

But I agree that there have been MORE dominant women in TF/XC than Felix. Reese is the primary one who came to my mind, but the list that Rant Ahead, Apologies. shared is excellent and I can support any of those women on that list.

the idea that peyton manning is on this list, let alone number 3 is absurd. also the write up for tom brady is horrible and reeks of millenial entitlement. ESPN is a joke

giant forehead wrote:

the idea that peyton manning is on this list, let alone number 3 is absurd. also the write up for tom brady is horrible and reeks of millenial entitlement. ESPN is a joke

GET OFF MY LAWN MILLENNIAL ESPN WRITERS!

and F TOM BRADY!

Haha. Felix being skeptical of her competitors.

Give me a break. Take a look at her performance at London 2012-100,200, 4*100 and 4*400.

Then in 2016 all talk was about her injury then miraculously she ran 49.51 in the 400m then competed in both relays.

Felix is a part of the “ system”.

joke list wrote:

Joe Calzaghe - retired undefeated and a world champion continually from 1997 to 2008. Not dominant enough? Phelps?

we all know why Phelps wasn't higher than the ones in front, he's white and male. literally the only reason whether you want to say it out loud or not you know it.

as someone else mentioned though, I'm not a Mo fan but his dominance in championship races over the last 6 years cant be ignored. Bekele also in the last 20 years was dominate on the track for almost 10 and xc, bad races for him were 2nd and 3rd in faster time than Mo had ran in his life lol

could go on...

even Fed has been at the top and winning in a men's tennis division with 2 other top 5 players ever outlasting them right now..... world number one like 17-18 years after he first hit it? crazy

Gotta bee wrote:

we all know why Phelps wasn't higher than the ones in front, he's white and male. literally the only reason whether you want to say it out loud or not you know it.

Yes that must be it because there were no white males on that list....oh wait there were plenty. No they came up with a math formula and stuck with it no matter what not realizing that math can have its own bias despite its straight forward nature. Would be interested in seeing how exhaustive the number of athletes who they entered. My guess is they didn't bother with a bunch of niche sports otherwise the list would dominated by a bunch of names you have not heard of. They also seemed to heavily weight medals for the non-team sports vs. records and did not differentiate between individual and relay medals. So someone like Mo or a track athlete that dominates a single event would be at a great disadvantage to a Felix or Bolt who get has a lot more chances. I wonder if in swimming they didn't bother to separate genders and Phelps was hurt by other athletes with a ton of medals reducing his "dominance"

Valerie Adams is a far more dominate athlete than Felix. Felix has had an incredible career, but she always just falls short of gold in individual events. For a period of 7 years the only person to beat Adams in the shot put was a doper. She also has the best throw of the 21st century and the clean shot put world record. (Everyone above Adams on the all time list is an obvious doper).

Like another poster mentioned, Valerie Adams was the first female athlete to win 4 consecutive world outdoor titles and 4 consecutive world indoor titles. Brittney Reese matched the feet and definitely is also deserving of the title as one of the most dominate athletes this century so far. Heck, both of them should be on the list above Felix. One could even make an argument of Adams being the greatest field athlete in history, of men and women.

Felix was obviously chosen to pander to the American populace. She is far more popular than Reese or Adams undeservingly.

Everything that ESPN does these days is a pathetic joke. This is just one more piece of evidence that the cutbacks are really hurting their product.

I also want to point out that tiger woods is a mixture of many races and he was Number 1.

I would also put bekele on the list and then MO and then EL G all before I would put felix. She is great but too many similar level contenders for her. I know much more about Mens track and field than womens so someone can correct me if there are any actual female contenders on the same level as Bekele, Mo and EL G. I am taking World titles, World Records and Olympic titles all into consideration. No I do not value olympic titles any more than a world title because its essentially the exact same field of athletes.

yeah_ESPN jumped the shark years ago-agree Forehead-I was scrolling down to see where they had Brady-sure if Manning had even half-assed coaches he would have had 3 or 4 Superbowls, but to have him that high and Brady that low is absurd-another reason why those lists make no sense.....agree with the others re. Felix-long, distinguished career but definitely did not dominate over her competition.

I feel like Ashton Eaton deserves to be mentioned. Did he lose any decathlon between his first international win in 2012 and his final in 2016?