Athlete of the Decade
 

Good morning Cellar!
I've been gone since summer, focusing on you know, senior year and school and getting a job (:yeldead:) and whatnot. I don't post here much but that's ok. Anyway...

2010 is almost upon us!
Who do YOU think is the Athlete of the Decade?

Obviously, Tiger Woods. ;)

I voted, and used the Clodfobble method for picking my guy.

writing a paper?

I went with Favre. don't know why really.

boy, that narrows it down......a little.

It has to be Tiger. Anyone who can shag that many beautiful women before his wife found out must be performing at an athletic pace.

Nobody has so completely dominated their sport for the past decade like Lance Armstrong, and do to so after brain surgery and chemotherapy is a testimony to mental toughness. There are few sports more physically demanding than competitive cycling, and he has completely defined the sport for a decade.

His decade was more 94-04, though

Phelps for me. I went through a phase of reading sporting bios and autobios a while back and Phelps' was the one that really stood out for this decade. Lance this decade has been a bit more of a Tiger Woods wrt womanizing and being an arrogant a-hole. IMO

Roger Federer.
he has become, without doubt, the greatest tennis player of all time.

Manny Pacquiao started fighting at age 16 and weighed 106 (light flyweight). His big break happened in 2001 when he stepped in as a replacement and became the new IBF World super bantamweight champ at the MGM Grand.
Since then he has repeatedly defended the seven world titles he holds in the seven different weight divisions he holds. He is considered by many the "pound for pound" best boxer in the world. His record is 50-3-2, with 38 KOs.
What a little guy!

I've only heard of 6 of those people. I'm obviously not qualified to vote.

You can still vote are you kidding me? Half the US population shouldn't be qualified to vote for our President if you're putting it in those terms.

Btw, Cloud who are the 6?

not telling, 'cause I'm 'barrassed. Actually, I do recognize one or two more, now that I've looked at it more closely.

Can you even compare athletes from different sports?

"Athlete" and "sportsperson" are a bit different, to my way of thinking. Woods is a great golfer, no doubt, and that takes *some* physical strength and stamina, but that isn't his main thing. It's skill, strategy, and mental steadiness.
Bolt or maybe Phelps or Armstrong would be the "athlete", I would guess, but the way the list is put together suggests you're thinking in terms of different criteria.

Woods can bench 325 my friend. He is definitely an athlete. Golf requires a ridiculous amount of muscle memory, but not only that you have to modify and adjust it based on the conditions. Do you know how friggin' hard golf is? Can you drive a ball 380 yards?

Table tennis players aren't huge, neither are fencers or members of the luge team. But can everyone manipulate their ping pong shots with the greatest of skill, or sustain the necessary balance and g-force to keep the luge at optimal speed?

I didn't know about bench pressing 325 (lbs, I presume ... or 325 women?). While this kicks arse over what I could do, by "athlete" standards, it is certainly not world beating.


Me, drive a ball 380 yards? Only in a car. :p

I'm still thinking of "athlete" as more of "one who does athletics". But I know you are using a wider reading of the term. Potato, potahto.

Problem then is how the heck do you compare Schumacher (yes, I know, F1 driving is very physically demanding) to Bolt. Two hours of maintaining skill and strategy while fighting huge g-forces and dehydration, but with all the technology and team support, Vs ten seconds of running like the wind. :confused: Apples and oranges. Potatoes and tomahtoes.

The only other idea I have is much simpler. Which one of them has been paid the most for what they do? Taht is the only absolutely comparable measure that combines how good they are at what they do, how hard what they do is, how many other people are trying to best them, and how much we are impressed by what they do. But that would just be total BS, because Bill Gates is no athlete.
Go to bed now Fresh. You have an exam tomorrow.

Tiger won, according to the Y! Poll.
http://sports.yahoo.com/golf/pga/new...v=ap&type=lgns

Jimmy crack corn.

Wow! I've heard of 16 of them and I don't really follow sports -or so I thought!