IMO, how great an athlete is, is determined by how dominant he was in his sport.
That said, Tiger Woods is, hands down, the greatest athlete. Nobody has dominated their sport as much as Tiger has dominated golf.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RayBot
But in hockey, if you take Gretzky vs. Ovechkin at the top of their careers....can't help to think that Gretzky had it easy way back when. Like, would Gretzky, if he started in 2005 would just have been utterly crushed while if Ovechkin started his career in '78 would have done much better than Gretzky.
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Disagree with that. It's not fair to say Gretzky had it easier back then. If the competition was weaker back then, then shouldn't our expectation of how good he was be lower too? He was ahead of the game at that time, and that's what you call dominance.
The same argument is often made up for Jordan...People say, well if Jordan played in 2005 when the competition seems to be a lot greater with athletes that can jump higher, accelerate faster, etc., then he wouldn't be as great. What those people fail to realize is that Jordan was ahead of his era. In fact, Jordan built today's game...The fade-away jumper, the high flying acrobatic moves to get to the hoop, the up-and-under, etc....those are all established by Jordan. You only saw Jordan doing those things in his era. The younger guys took after him and the rest is history. He formed the new game.
So again, when talking about the greatest athlete, use dominance as the main category to classify it.