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

El Keniano wrote:

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.

Not just "to them", but pretty much every one, because distance running is essentially for those who fail at sprinting.

Bolt and Phelps are the most dominant athletes ever. Others can't even compare. Not even Tiger in his prime.

BS wrote:

[quote]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"[/quote

lets see what I said again "we all know why Phelps wasn't higher than the ones in front", Phelps has 39 world records, 39!!!!!!

in Olympics alone from 2004-2016 he medaled in 28-29 evens he was in(23 gold)

total medals 82: gold- 65, silver- 14, bronze 3 lol

this isn't even a debate and I don't even like Phelps as a guy.... btw his worst Olympic finish was 5th at 15 years old

Top 5: No debate

1. Phelps ( dudes a fish + most decorated Olympian)

2: Bolt ( he’s fast)

3. Floyd Mayweather ( 50-0 )

4. Serena Williams ( the goat)

5. Lebrun James (7 straight finals - All star for 14 straight years)

Bolt should be much higher. Top 3 at worst: In 21 international competitions in the 100, 200 and 4x1 over an 8-year span, he lost once and that was by false start DQ. He's in a league w/ Mayweather, Phelps, Serena, Messi and, yes, LeBron.

Foxy, as much as I love her, should not be on the list. She's one of the greatest sprinters in American history due to her versatility and durability, not her dominance. She was never dominant.

Foxxy is fun and foxy, but she is not dominant (actually, in certain situations, quite submissive, lol!).

Agreed with the poster who nominated Brittney Reese. Bolt of course.

But all this nonsense about Phelps being the most dominant ever - if we had a similar event cascade in track (60/100/150/200/300, each run with left foot start then right foot start = ten events) then Bolt would be even more dominant than Phelps.

But if we move the clock back, these guys don't compare to e.g. Nurmi.

Gotta bee wrote:

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.

So how does that theory explain Peyton Manning, also white and male, being so absurdly overrated on the list? Manning likely does not belong on the list at all and obviously should be ranked behind Brady.

I have no problem with ranking Phelps number one, even though his sport has a far shallower talent pool than some of these other sports. He's been incredibly dominant. Most general sports fans would have no problem with Phelps, Bolt, LeBron, Mayweather or Serena being ranked number one.

westsouthrunner wrote:

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.

Bekele? His XC was great, and his 10 000m track record is as well. But he got beaten in 2003, 2004 and 2007 over the more competitive 5000m. His dominance on the track, in global championships, isn't in the same league as Bolt or Mo; much as I think he's a far superior athlete to Mo, losing to El G, Kipchoge and Lagat means he wasn't nearly as dominant as others.

Felix dominates at selling stuff.

The only reason he has that many golds is because swimming has so many gimmick strokes. Imagine if Bolt could have run backwards or skipped down the track. Anything other than freestyle swimming is a joke.

This is a fraud.

How Ezekiel Kemboi Yano is not on this list boggles the mind.

Seriously!

Trolls on the thread aside, Felix's place on the list is pretty defensible, at least if you accept the methodology on T&F. It sure looks like she's in the top 10 of more EOY rankings than anyone else in any other event over the last two decades--14 out of 20. It actually seems like she should be ahead of Bolt. And it's pretty clear that "dominant" has to do with staying power more than dominance over an individual season. That's the whole point of the list. In the 100 Bolt only made the top 10 in 10 of the last 20 years and had fewer #1s than Felix. Brittany Reese has the same number of #1s, but also only made the top 10 10 times. The eastern european women in the field events were just a little short of reese.

The more interesting question is whether they picked a good metric for track. What do you do in a sport that, over the course of 1997-2017 has 16 years significant years (olympics and WC years) and 4 mostly insignificant years? It lets someone like Felix, who had three of her #1s and a #2 in the off years, pad her resume a bit. Would they be better off counting medals instead? What does that do to someone whose birthday doesn't give them as many shots in their prime? Or to someone who won every race they ran over a decade except for a few second place finishes in the champs?

And fwiw, Phelps isn't on the list because the international swim league doesn't seem to make enough money. (kind of stupid, but I guess they had to draw the line somewhere.)

Also, can anyone explain why the WNBA uses a different metric than the NBA?

Bekele never ran the 2007 5,000m WC. He did lose a golden league 5,000m to Lagat in 2006 but i think from 2004 to 2009 that was his only loss in the 5,000m. I think i read after Lagat's loss, he won something like 30 track races in a row (3,000m to 10,0000m)...that's pretty dominant if you ask me

Tron wrote:

wtfunny wrote:

Bekele? His XC was great, and his 10 000m track record is as well. But he got beaten in 2003, 2004 and 2007 over the more competitive 5000m. His dominance on the track, in global championships, isn't in the same league as Bolt or Mo; much as I think he's a far superior athlete to Mo, losing to El G, Kipchoge and Lagat means he wasn't nearly as dominant as others.

Bekele never ran the 2007 5,000m WC. He did lose a golden league 5,000m to Lagat in 2006 but i think from 2004 to 2009 that was his only loss in the 5,000m. I think i read after Lagat's loss, he won something like 30 track races in a row (3,000m to 10,0000m)...that's pretty dominant if you ask me

Also if you look at one of letsrun's latest articles. They show the dominance of bekele, mo, and kamworor.

Win Rates During Their Peak Years

Bekele Farah Kamworor

2003: 9/12 2011: 12/14

2004: 9/10 2012: 11/14

2005: 10/12 2013: 9/12 2014: 5/8

2006: 12/17 2014: 5/7 2015: 5/9

2007: 11/13 2015: 8/10 2016: 3/5

2008: 12/13 2016: 7/10 2017: 3/8

2009: 9/10 2017: 9/12 2018: 3/3

Total: 72/87 (82.8%) Total: 61/79 (77.2%) Total: 19/34 (57.6%)

If youre going to count that loss for bekele then you also have to account for some of mo's losses such as the indoor 3k and the outdoor 3k i believe. Difference between Mo and bekele is Mo has more medals but Bekele has more World records over more competitive racesand medals to show for it. To me that comes out to more dominance than slower olympic world championship races. Also want to point out that Bekele has the World championship record the the 10k and the olympic 5k and 10k records. If you look at the all time list for the 5k and the 10k mo farah only has one out of the top 100 in the 5k when bekele has 11. Mo also has 4 in the 10k when bekele has 9. We also are not even adding the marathon in which would really put bekele ahead. This is why I will never put mo in front of bekele.

Unpopular Opinion

Women shouldn't be on the same list. They should make a separate list.

Good thing you bumped a 3+ year old thread.