What's with all the talk about Serena Williams being the greatest athlete of all time?

Triathlon Forum
41

When I think of some one who would be called the greatest athlete, I think of someone who has an incredible combination of strength, speed and coordination. They could be successful at almost any sport. They probably wouldn’t be the best at any one sport. //

You just described Jim Thorpe. Decathlon, pentathlon, high jump, long jump(separate events he competed in from the multi ones) pro football(hall of fame)Pro baseball, and pro basketball. He also did a couple other sports, which people said he never trained for!! Said he would just show up and win. For a guy like him with his background, I would say he gets the all round greatest athlete award.

I wonder if he ever swam or rode a bike???

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Thorpe

42

Greatest female tennis player of all time, perhaps and at least in the running…

Not even close to the greatest tennis player(including men)

And not even on the fist 10 pages of greatest athletes of all time, unless the bar for measuring is you have a vagina and have to play tennis…

She might be on the front page near the bottom, of highest paid athletes though, not sure how much she makes in comparison to top men in other sports…

I think when you decide on greatest athlete of all time, you just compare women against women and men vs men. Obviously you cannot compare men vs women even if they play the same sport. If I use that criteria, I’d put Serena right up there.

Here is a sanity check comparing men and women grand slam totals (not men playing against women, just each sex vs their peers). Here is what you see after I entered names into google

Grand Slams Wins

Serena Williams 23 Steffi Graf 22Federer 20Chris Evert 18Navratilova 18Nadal 17Sampras 14Djokovic 13Rod Laver 11Bjorn Borg 11Monica Seles 9Connors 8Becker 6McEnroe 7Venus Williams 7Hingis 5
Just based on this, Serena is the best tennis pro of all time at least in my lifetime of half a centure. I know a lot of men will jump in and say depth of field is a greater on the men’s side, but that’s because women across the board have less access to sport, so the women who win are the best of the half the world of women who actually make it to pro tennis.

Now how does Serena compare to say Wayne Gretzky, Jim Brown, Pele, Tom Brady, Don Bradman, Ronaldo, Alberto Tomba, Jean Cluade Killy, Eric Heiden, Sanchin Tendulkar, Lebron James, Usein Bolt, FloJo, Michael Phelps, Bjorne Dahlie, Mark Spitz, Diego Maradona/George Best (can I include them here…probably not), Carl Lewis, Jesse Owens, Emil Zatopek, Lasse Viren, Lance/Merckx/Hinault (gallery of dopers, but hey, everyone on this list is likely well enhanced with what they can get away with anyway)…I’d have no idea who is the greatest among all of those…I could pick any of them and make an arguement for any of them.

43

**Grand Slams Wins **

Serena Williams 23
Steffi Graf 22
Federer 20

Margaret Court won 24 individual Grand Slams, also 19 doubles and 21 mixed doubles (a total of 64 Grand Slams).

44

Dev-

Again you leave off margaret court. 24 slam wins. She also is only one of three women to complete the grand slam… Which Serena has NOT done.

Margaret also won’t the Australian open 11 times. More than any other tennis player repeatedly won any single tournament. Serena 7.

Margaret also won more consecutive slam events than any other player with 6. Serena 4.

Margaret is 3rd all time for number of consecutive years with a slam title at 7. Serena is not in the top 5.

They are tied with 2 Years in which they each won 3 of 4 slams.

The only category where Serena outdid margaret is the number of times they each one a tournement without dropping a single set: Serena =6, margeret =3.

She did all that at a time when being a woman tennis player was disparaged and self supported. But, I assume you know that history.

Sorry… Margaret Court takes the title of greatest woman tennis player. Besides, I’d probably put Navratilova over Serena also.

45

Well 24>23 so Margaret takes it. Sorry for leaving that out. Serena has work to do. I hope she can take it to number 1. Serena gets another shot this weekend now that she advanced to the finals. Gotta like this young girl Naomi Osaka who plays Serena in the finals…she’ on TV now and asked for a message to Serena and answers, “I love you”.

Regardless, this weekend will be awesome.

46
  1. Jim Thorp
  2. Jim Brown
  3. Bo Jackson

Then a long way to the next person…

I would reverse that order. Bo did things in both sports that you simply weren’t supposed to be able to do. He was a true freak of nature. Due to shoddy camera work from the 80’s you can’t see it all, but I’ve heard George Brett tell the story. Flat footed, from the warning track, on the fly and on the money. This was also his second best professional sport.

https://youtu.be/eB9wi_zvMdM

47

I like this topic. Who would be your top 5 athletes of all time? Use your own criteria.

  1. Lebron James
  2. Michael Jordan
  3. Walter Payton
  4. Bo Jackson
  5. Pele

That’s mine.

1.- Jordan
2.- Joe Montana
3.- Phelps
4.- Usain Bolt
5.- Lionel Sanders

Odd you put the second best QB as number 2 and left the GOAT off your list completely.

48

I think Erin Baker should deserve a mention

Tony Hawk too
.

49

Hard to argue, either way. Three amazing athletes. The anecdotes are certainly there for Mr. Jackson. Longevity is the holdback for me. Mr. Thorp did everything well. I have Mr. Brown 2nd for his lacrosse proficiency, his mental capacity to keep going when it looked like he was done and his willingness to walk away while at the top.

50

It would be hard not to give this title to Kelly Slater.//

He made my list, Phelps did not. As record breaking and dominant as Phelps was, I just dont consider swimming enough of an all round sport. Surfing on the other hand requires many more facets of the human body, not just endurance and speed. That’s why Thorpe was my top pick, besides the 10 sports of the decathlon, the 5 sports of the pentathlon, he played pro baseball, basketball, and football.
I figure a triathlete ought to be in the top 10, pretty versatile sport with a heavy emphasis on endurance. IT is such a hard topic talking about greatest athletes, everyone comes with their own bias and what constitutes greatness, and which sports deserve higher point values. But I think we can all agree that Serena is not the greatest athlete, that seems like a no brainer…(-;

To quote McEnroe (since this started with tennis:)), “you can not be serious” about Kelly Slater. I mean, AFAIK, surfing is even more of a fringe sport than triathlon, and surfing has nowhere near as many competitors worldwide as swimming. I had never even heard of Slater until you mentioned him, whereas virtually everyone in the First and Second Worlds have heard of Phelps.

51

Court played in the 60’s. I’d put peak court up against peak Serena. Peak Serena wins. Tennis has evolved just like baseball and basketball. It would be close, but Serena wins

52

I think everyone in the first and second world has heard of Slater except maybe you? Surfing is now an Olympic sport so hardly a fringe sport…

53

It would be hard not to give this title to Kelly Slater.//

He made my list, Phelps did not. As record breaking and dominant as Phelps was, I just dont consider swimming enough of an all round sport. Surfing on the other hand requires many more facets of the human body, not just endurance and speed. That’s why Thorpe was my top pick, besides the 10 sports of the decathlon, the 5 sports of the pentathlon, he played pro baseball, basketball, and football.
I figure a triathlete ought to be in the top 10, pretty versatile sport with a heavy emphasis on endurance. IT is such a hard topic talking about greatest athletes, everyone comes with their own bias and what constitutes greatness, and which sports deserve higher point values. But I think we can all agree that Serena is not the greatest athlete, that seems like a no brainer…(-;

To quote McEnroe (since this started with tennis:)), “you can not be serious” about Kelly Slater. I mean, AFAIK, surfing is even more of a fringe sport than triathlon, and surfing has nowhere near as many competitors worldwide as swimming. I had never even heard of Slater until you mentioned him, whereas virtually everyone in the First and Second Worlds have heard of Phelps.

No way! Slater is the greatest surfer of all time for sure. And surfing, at an elite level, is a pretty 3 dimensional athletic endevour. Not sure he could beat anyone at tennis though, or basketball. So how to compare across wildly different sports? - it can’t be done in any meaningful way.

We hear the same arguments every time the Olympics comes around and Phelps starts to do his stuff - All these pundits rattling on about whether he’s the “greatest olympian of all time” because he’s won more medals… etc etc. ad nauseam…

It’s fine for a bit of harmless punditry but unless you are comparing apples with apples any comparison is largely meaningless.

54

I think Erin Baker should deserve a mention

Tony Hawk too

I’d put Rodney Mullen ahead of Tony Hawk :wink:

The whole point of Nike calling Serena the Goat is because she is objectively awesome and a Nike athlete.
We all have our favourites. I’ve noticed most posters are very USA dominant. Many I’ve never heard of.
Depending on criteria we’d have 10 different lists and no one could agree.
It fun to Google the American sports stars who have almost no impact overseas.

55

1: Caitlyn Jenner
2:
3:
4:
etc, etc…

It would be hard not to give this title to Kelly Slater.//

He made my list, Phelps did not. As record breaking and dominant as Phelps was, I just dont consider swimming enough of an all round sport. Surfing on the other hand requires many more facets of the human body, not just endurance and speed. That’s why Thorpe was my top pick, besides the 10 sports of the decathlon, the 5 sports of the pentathlon, he played pro baseball, basketball, and football.
I figure a triathlete ought to be in the top 10, pretty versatile sport with a heavy emphasis on endurance. IT is such a hard topic talking about greatest athletes, everyone comes with their own bias and what constitutes greatness, and which sports deserve higher point values. But I think we can all agree that Serena is not the greatest athlete, that seems like a no brainer…(-;

To quote McEnroe (since this started with tennis:)), “you can not be serious” about Kelly Slater. I mean, AFAIK, surfing is even more of a fringe sport than triathlon, and surfing has nowhere near as many competitors worldwide as swimming. I had never even heard of Slater until you mentioned him, whereas virtually everyone in the First and Second Worlds have heard of Phelps.

No way! Slater is the greatest surfer of all time for sure. And surfing, at an elite level, is a pretty 3 dimensional athletic endevour. Not sure he could beat anyone at tennis though, or basketball. So how to compare across wildly different sports? - it can’t be done in any meaningful way.

We hear the same arguments every time the Olympics comes around and Phelps starts to do his stuff - All these pundits rattling on about whether he’s the “greatest olympian of all time” because he’s won more medals… etc etc. ad nauseam…

It’s fine for a bit of harmless punditry but unless you are comparing apples with apples any comparison is largely meaningless.

56

Greatest female tennis player of all time, perhaps and at least in the running…

Not even close to the greatest tennis player(including men)

And not even on the fist 10 pages of greatest athletes of all time, unless the bar for measuring is you have a vagina and have to play tennis…

She might be on the front page near the bottom, of highest paid athletes though, not sure how much she makes in comparison to top men in other sports…

I think when you decide on greatest athlete of all time, you just compare women against women and men vs men. Obviously you cannot compare men vs women even if they play the same sport. If I use that criteria, I’d put Serena right up there.

Here is a sanity check comparing men and women grand slam totals (not men playing against women, just each sex vs their peers). Here is what you see after I entered names into google

Grand Slams Wins

Serena Williams 23 Steffi Graf 22Federer 20Chris Evert 18Navratilova 18Nadal 17Sampras 14Djokovic 13Rod Laver 11Bjorn Borg 11Monica Seles 9Connors 8Becker 6McEnroe 7Venus Williams 7Hingis 5
Just based on this, Serena is the best tennis pro of all time at least in my lifetime of half a centure. I know a lot of men will jump in and say depth of field is a greater on the men’s side, but that’s because women across the board have less access to sport, so the women who win are the best of the half the world of women who actually make it to pro tennis.

Now how does Serena compare to say Wayne Gretzky, Jim Brown, Pele, Tom Brady, Don Bradman, Ronaldo, Alberto Tomba, Jean Cluade Killy, Eric Heiden, Sanchin Tendulkar, Lebron James, Usein Bolt, FloJo, Michael Phelps, Bjorne Dahlie, Mark Spitz, Diego Maradona/George Best (can I include them here…probably not), Carl Lewis, Jesse Owens, Emil Zatopek, Lasse Viren, Lance/Merckx/Hinault (gallery of dopers, but hey, everyone on this list is likely well enhanced with what they can get away with anyway)…I’d have no idea who is the greatest among all of those…I could pick any of them and make an arguement for any of them.

Depth of field? You’re either not getting it…or, you’re being obstinate.

She likely couldn’t beat the world 300th ranked male…yet she is a better athlete?

Please. Just stop this nonsense.

57

i think the main thing is that she’s really good at sports
.

58

I think Erin Baker should deserve a mention

Tony Hawk too

I’d put Rodney Mullen ahead of Tony Hawk :wink:

The whole point of Nike calling Serena the Goat is because she is objectively awesome and a Nike athlete.
We all have our favourites. I’ve noticed most posters are very USA dominant. Many I’ve never heard of.
Depending on criteria we’d have 10 different lists and no one could agree.
It fun to Google the American sports stars who have almost no impact overseas.

Hell, I’d put CHRIS Mullen in front of Tony hawk.

59

While I agree with you that Katie Ledecky is better at her sport than Serena at hers. And I believe Ledecky dominates her events like no other swimmer. Ledecky cannot lay claim to being the best swimmer since she can’t beat the top males. Just the way it is.

Even as far as females go, Katie Ledecky is better at her sport than Serena at hers. In fact, Katie might be the greatest ever, mens or womens in any sport.

60

While I agree with you that Katie Ledecky is better at her sport than Serena at hers. And I believe Ledecky dominates her events like no other swimmer. Ledecky cannot lay claim to being the best swimmer since she can’t beat the top males. Just the way it is.

Even as far as females go, Katie Ledecky is better at her sport than Serena at hers. In fact, Katie might be the greatest ever, mens or womens in any sport.

So effin’ what? It’s generally accepted that you only measure against your potential competition, and for the most part that means that males are measured against males and females against females. Para-athletes get measured against other para-athletes. It really doesn’t matter that Ledecky is behind the top males, since she isn’t competing against them.