When I think of greatest athletes ever. I would consider bo jackson, an athlete that excelled in two professional sports.

Everyone has their own criteria, and i'm not hating on slater he's the best at what he does.

There's nothing wrong with saying Phelps dominates his respective sport but this discussion is about the all around greatest athlete not the greatest athlete in their respective sport.

My point was a triathlon has swimming, running and cycling.

Phelps dominates in swimming which is one third of a triathlon.

He might win the swimming portion but would probably get beat in the other two. So my point was the all around better athlete would be the overall winner of the triathlon.


However, if you want to compare Phelps career against Slater's career, Kelly smokes him by a mile :thumbsup

What's a nice Jewish boy like you doing growing up in Galveston, TX Mr. Demon?

No wonder your mind is so twisted and warped and your crazed racist and religious zealot ideology is always changing as if you're a schizophrenic.

You're from the greatest white trash backward inbred dumbfuck capital of the world. You should support your Governors efforts to break away from the US, please leave... no one wants Texas. (sorry Austin, you guys are cool)

Oh and Texas waves and surfers are the biggest jokes of the surfing world.

slater gets shacked in Indo

sorry but this Kelly person (whoever he is?) cannot be the greatest athelete in the world. simply because hardly anyone surfs compared to other sports, if it was a massive sport and the cometition was great AND he still stood head and shoulders over eveyone else then he would have a claim, until then ....

ever been to Australia?

Good point. How many pro surfers are there?

Why cut off my quote mid way through the sentence? Read it as it should be and it'll make sense, how many aussies play rugby, football, drinking, aussie football, ect compared to surfing?

best surfer ever? definitely.... best athlete ever? no

not that he is not an amazing athlete, but there is no "best athlete ever"... just impossible to compare athletes from different sports

jordan, rice, slater, bonds, woods.... add whoever you want to to that list, they are all among the top 1% of the top 1%, but you can never compare their skills, or athletic abilities.

but yeah... he definitely amazes me in the water.

and yes, if you give me 100 swings i could hit a 90 mph fastball

if you gave me 1,000 attempts at being towed into one of those waves i would probably be dead after the 1st attempt

The great one says hi

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_uE1n8xARdX...e+Gretzky3.jpg

How can you even judge a person if you have no idea who he is or what he's done or the sport that he participates in. It would be like giving a review of a movie that you have neither seen or heard of.

This was about who is the greatest athlete NOT who is the greatest competitor. There's a huge difference and many here are not making that distinction.

I think people are tying the sport too much into the athlete and that's not the best way to compare. To find the greatest athlete you would have to objectively separate him from his respective sport and see what other skills he has that makes him an all around athlete. That's why I made the comparison between Phelps and a triathlon competitor. Phelps is the best at swimming but probably sucks at running and other disciplines so there is no way he could be considered the greatest athlete.

A more efficient way would be to have a selection of athletes like Jordon, Rice, Bonds and Slater and put them through a series of athletic challenges much like a decathlon to determine their overall abilities. Of course many of those athletes are past their prime so you would have to consider what they did while at their best.

Once you've determined who is the most athletic in that way then you could add what they have accomplished in their professional career and by mixing the two a conclusion could be ascertained as to who is the greatest athlete.

Actually it might make for a very entertaining reality show with that format :winkwink:

other then this being one of the dumbest threads, compared to atleast 5-10 other people who played 2 professional sports (ex. Michael Jordan, Bo Jackson, Deon Sanders..) You are listing a surfer as the greatest athlete. Yea that makes sense. Do you know how many people want to become major league baseball players or soccor players or football players then want to become surfers? Not saying he is not great. But the success rate would be drastically higher.

Anyhow. My pick is not Kelly Slater. It is A.C. Slater for athlete of the century.

http://images.starpulse.com/news/media/AC-Slater.jpg

By the same token, saying this Kelly bloke is the best athelete ever is the same as saying that you just watched your first ever film (say Independence Day, LOL!) and declaring it the best film ever.

using that logic, then the greatest soccer player would be the worlds greatest athlete, followed by the greatest cricket player...since those are the two most played sports in the world.

What I found interesting in the article was that it was asking what athlete has dominated his or her sport for as long as Slater. In a 20 year career (minus 3 years when he "retired" after winning 5 in a row) he has won 9 world championships and is currently ranked 1st once again with 4 contests to go.

Ultimately, there can never be a single "greatest", as Campimp said. But I certainly think Slater could be in that group of greatest.

We are agreed then? Pele is the world's greatest athelete :)

...or is it Maradona...:upsidedow

...either way, Sir Donald Bradman must be number 2!!!

You make great sense my friend. Both points you made about not being able to pick a best athlete ever and your point about hitting a fast ball and dying on a huge wave are true.

Lets do some business sometime.

After coming out of the tube at teahupoo Kelly popped the top on a can of Foster's and celebrated another ride.

(not my pic)
http://www.smh.com.au/ffximage/2005/..._430x303,1.jpg

Originally Posted by campimp

"and yes, if you give me 100 swings i could hit a 90 mph fastball

if you gave me 1,000 attempts at being towed into one of those waves i would probably be dead after the 1st attempt"

great quote!

It's really to hard to compare atheletes in so many fields. I would say he's among the best

True - the more appropriate term would be "Legendary" as opposed to "Best" - but to say it's much harder to hit a 90 mph fast ball - than do this shit.....

Kane Waselenchuk a racquetball player won 100% of his matches last year and finished with a 98% game win ratio. He only lost one match the year before that. He has won 5 US Opens (equivalent to a Tennis US Open). He was banned for two years (cocaine) during his prime and probably would have won in those years. He is freakishly strong, fast, and accurate. Can kill the ball from any angle.

I think to be considered the greatest athlete ever you have to have dominated a major sport and probably multiple major sports plus set some track and field records. The decathlon winner generally gets the moniker "world's greatest athlete". If Jim Thorpe won that plus owned several major sports he is probably the best. I don't know how he would stack up to a modern athlete now when it it more competitive.

was that sig spam?

Did you watch that last wave - Garret McNamara at Teahupoo - filthiest barrel I have ever seen.

good point the decathletes are often called the greatest due to their all-around skills.. But dude your sig is bigger than pipe at 8 feet.

Kelly Slater just won his tenth world title in Puerto Rico even though there are a few events still left in the 2010 tour. :thumbsup

It will be hard to come up with any other athlete that as a single competitor has won ten world championship titles. What makes it even more amazing is at 38 years old he still dominates when most pro surfers retire by the time they hit thirty and he regularly competes against others 15 years younger.

He still has the physical ability to win more world titles and now it's just a question whether he wants to go through the grind of earning another title or calling it quits and enjoying other things in life.

One thing is for sure and that is Kelly Slater is a VERY special human being.

You can watch him surfing right now live at the contest here:

http://live.ripcurl.com/PuertoRicoLive.html

Kelly's 10th WOW!

http://sports.espn.go.com/action/sur...ory?id=5771045

Kelly is clearly the best surfer ever but best athlete ever is far to subjective, like I wouldn't put Jerry Rice or any baseball player in my top 50 but that would be due to my lake of understanding and not their athletic ability.

Here is my top ten surfers list of all times.
1) Kelly Slater
2) Tom Curren
3) Duke Kahanamoku
4) Tom Carroll
5) Mark Richards
6) Nat Young
7) Laird Hamilton
8) Mark Occhilupo
9) Martin Potter
10) Layne Beachley

Layne I put in for the way she has changed woman's surfing, so many more hot chicks in the waves theses days :)

Yes almost no one :thumbsup

http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-..._7146533_n.jpg

http://www.morethanthegames.co.uk/fi...eymarshes2.jpg

that's not sport that is piece of shit goofying around on the beach

riding giants is a sick movie.

Kobe bryant is a good athlete - maybe the best. He could be a wide receiver or short stop for the yanks.

He won his 10th today

Don't make me laugh..

Ronaldo?

http://www.braziltravel.com/culture/...pele/pele.jpeg
http://mdst1070.files.wordpress.com/...hammed_ali.jpg
http://www.usposttoday.com/wp-conten...ael-Jordan.jpg

I was just watching this video and it made me think of this thread. It does a nice job of describing
the kind of person Kelly Slater is and shows why he is so unique.

I've been surfing for over 35 years. It's not just a sport it's a lifestyle and yields a greater understanding of life and the world we live in. There is no disputing that Kelly Slater is the greatest competitive surfer ever and should be considered one of if not the greatest competitors of any sport, ever. Until " athlete " is defined using a set criteria, the title of " Greatest Athlete " will be subjective.

Watch this video to help form your own opinion :)


http://www.surfinglife.com.au/news/a...68-kells-bells