I don’t think we’re miles apart really Jez. For me, truly elite is a mix of not having peers that can beat you on their day (of course there are exceptions) but also raising the game to the sort of levels that others just can’t, which is why I include Brady & Jordan. Nadal has more titles than RF & Novak will beat them both. Steffi was magnificent but Martina has more titles overall & Serena has more single titles still. For such a long time, years & years, Tiger was almost unbeatable & so dominant in every aspect of the game that he’d opponents beaten just by standing on the tee. Usain Bolt was the same. Anyway, that’s my thoughts!
Watching this reminds me of when I first started playing the game, it was probably around 15 years ago and I'd just bought a cheap set of RAM golf clubs. Found this video of Tiger Woods and it just makes you want to play Golf!!! Many sets of golf clubs and thousands of pounds later, I'm still no better but there's nothing like a round of Golf in the sun with your mates! Get in the hole!!!!
100% To be in that echelon though, vale, woods etc they have to have some kind of story(s) attached to them too, not just that they're the best at what they do for XXX amount of years.. thats what pulls people in from afar isnt it. Injuries, comebacks, rivalries, heartbreak etc...boys/girls own stuff and all that
No, this is where there is a difference. Barry Sheene was my childhood hero & to me he’s a god, but I’m British. Rossi’s name is as well known in the Welsh valleys as it is in the favelas of Rio & just about anywhere else you can think of. He transcends his sport…still not as good as Marquez is though!
Got to put George Best, Lance Armstrong, Torville & Dean on any list of superstar athletes who transcend their sports
The man is a convicted and admitted drugs cheat, all his titles are worthless and he brought disgrace to his sport. Nothing he achieved is worth anything. The fact that he fooled people for a period of time doesn’t change what he is and elite he certainly isn’t.
He’s an arsehole of the highest order, but he made cycling huge in the 00s. There wasn’t a rider in the peloton who wasn’t juiced up to the eyeballs, the fact he beat them all 7 times in a row is a massive acheivement drugs or not, his appeal was and still is massive. The way he bullied and threatened others is deplorable, but his existence did cycling a world of wonder. if you ask 100 randoms to name a cyclist most of them will say Lance before Merckx, Hinault, Wiggins etc
Wow! I couldn’t disagree more. What he did was deplorable and cycling is still paying the price for it nowadays. The fact that he wasn’t the only one is not the point & what he did was nothing like a “massive achievement” he cheated to such an extent (to the point of replacing all his blood with highly juiced up blood & keeping the exact formula to himself) to “beat” his peers, some of which weren’t cheating. Lance Armstrong isn’t worth the time of day, never mind a discussion about elite athletes here or anywhere!
We’re not talking about the most humanitarian athletes, and you’d struggle to pick anyone of his peers who hasn’t had a whiff of scandal. Ullrich, Pantani, Vino, they were all at it in a big way. In an era where doping was blatant and they all had the same doctors, you have to be exceptional to win the Tour 7 times on the trot. He’s become a useful scapegoat for a sport that wants to pretend it’s cleaned up it act, it’s still acceptable to celebrate Pantani for the wonderful cyclist he was to watch but not Lance. He does himself no favours by being a massive c*nt however
“if you ask 100 randoms to name a cyclist most of them will say Lance before Merckx, Hinault, Wiggins” That’s a totally different point. He’s infamous because of what he did, not because of what he achieved because that has all been taken away from him, erased, all of it. He’s not an elite sportsman, that is what this thread was about, not whether he’s “famous” or not.
It’s not a difference of opinion if you’re really trying to tell me that Lance Armstrong is an elite athlete-your just wrong! To some extent his name transcends the sport, if that’s what you mean, but definitely NOT his “achievements”
Regardless of his cheating, he was an elite athlete. Undoubted. You can’t do what he did without all that goes with being elite. They were all on the same drugs too. I’d wager most would know his name but not that he was caught red handed, outside of cycling fans. His beating of cancer another show of determination. Admirable? No.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seriously disagreed with you before Paul but on this one we’re just poles apart. You can’t start this conversation with “Regardless of his cheating” & then call him elite. He was operating at that level for a while because he was cheating. That’s not sporting achievement, it’s just cheating. There’s nothing elite about taking blood transfusions of banned experimental steroid drugs to beat your opponents. He achieved nothing, he has nothing now, no titles, no records, no championships & his life is a lie. He’s also a staggeringly obnoxious individual with no shame and no remorse. He threw his teammates under the bus & took no responsibility, instead choosing to blame the system, a system that he was instrumental in creating and secretive about how he took it & denied it for years while the few clean athletes & the riders who looked up to him were cheated out of their rightful titles. He has infamy for sure, I hope that keeps him warm at night but in the sport he has nothing else
I’m sorry Symon, but I have to disagree with you there. When you say transcending sport that means to me that a lot of non interested people recognise the character and Barry Sheene is right up there. Personally I was never a fan of his, but in his day if you asked most people (non motorcyclists) to name a motorcycle racer they’d invariably come up with Sheene’s name, he was world wide brilliant at selling himself.
