blonde poker forum

with the presence of all time greats, more so than other eras? (comparisons in brackets)


Michael Schumacher it could be argued is the best ever (Fangio, Senna)

Tiger Woods, the same..... (Nicklaus, Hogan)

Roger Federer....the same (Laver, Borg etc)

Zidane, Ronaldinho........(Puskas, Moore, Di Stefano.......)

Tendulkar, Lara.......? (Bradman, Sobers.......)

Lance Armstrong? (Merckx)



but we have all these in one era/decade.........



or do we over-react to perceived greatness due to blanket media coverage?


is it down to improvements in technology/training techniques?

evolution and technology improvements.

Probably due to science, money (attracting more players and enabling people to focus 100% on their sport), and media exposure.

Also there are some sports where it could be argued that we're missing the stars of yesteryear - e.g. boxing.

all of these people are immensely talented and I would agree that this generation has seen some superb atheletes.
I would add Martina Navritolva to the list, probably Maradona to.

Indeed some brilliant sportspeople.

The power of determination and mindpower being a critical part of their success.Particularly in the case of Lance Armstrong and Tiger Woods.

Federer just proved his mental toughness by finally beating Nadal on clay - getting over his fear of the surface against the best exponent on that surface. Now he has that monkey off his back - he will have to target another goal - it must be immensely boring winning all the time.

Good question.

I think it depends on the sport. In cricket not much has changed. Averages and scores from 40 years ago are still relevant and comparable. Golf is another sport where this is probably quite true. Arguably snooker too. In motor racing however the cars are ever improving and real comparisons are hard to make. Football comparisons are very difficult to make. As are comparisons in Tennis.

For me a sport's golden eras are times with a good competitive balance and uncertainty of outcome. An example is boxing. Real greats in the sport are usually from a time where many other greats were about. ie Ali/Frazier/Foreman or Heans/Hagler/Duran/Leonard. Similarly in athletics with Lewis/Burrell. Johnson/Fredericks. Lewis/Powell. Coe/Ovett.

I do think the media are guilty of over hyping at times but I think it's also a real possibility that all time greats will always be surpassed as we strive to improve, get better, go faster and win more.

The best sports for comparisons to the past are all US sports. Statistics are everything over there. Players wages and contracts are dependant on their points scored/yards made etc etc. In a lot of European sports that is very hard to do.

For the most part though I do just think sportspersons get better as we evolve and our training techniques and technologies improve. (And people can play their desired sport full time and be supported by their government etc)

There are of course exceptions (If Michael Johnson's 200m world record goes in the next 10 years I'll be surprised!) but these are just one offs I guess. Events that simply cannot be accounted for by reasoning and are literally history making. But on the whole I think we're just going to improve year after year.

Absolutely.  The fella is/was a freak.  It'll need another freak (with the training, opportunity, etc.) to come close.

Athletics is interesting, as although there are medals to win in the big events, there are 'absolutes' in place to compare athletes - world records.  For example, there are many who don't recognise Paula Radcliffe's achievements (focusing instead on her track disappointments and that race in Greece), but she's almost certainly Britain's finest ever athlete.  In her discipline (road running) have a look at her personal bests from the 8K distance and above and note how many are world records or world bests:

• 8 km road - 24:05 (World Best)
• 10 km road - 30:21 (WR)
• 15 km road - 46:41 (World Best)
• 10 mi road - 50:01 (World Best)
• 20 km road - 1:02.21
• Half Marathon - 1:05:40 (World Best)
• 25 km road - 1:20:36 (World Best)
• 30 km road - 1:36:36 (World Best)
• 20 mi road - 1:43:33 (World Best)
• Marathon - 2:15:25 (WR)

Other athletics 'legends' from present or recent times include:  Sergey Bubka (Pole Vault), Jan Zelezný (Javelin), Jonathan Edwards (Triple Jump), Michael Johnson (as mentioned) 200m & 400m, Kenenisa Bekele 5Km & 10Km, and lots of others I can't think of at the moment.

To break these athlete's records isn't just a case of modern technology improving training techniques, etc., it also needs a brilliantly talented and gifted individual to start with.

It's far, far harder (impossible?) to compare sportsmen in many sports.  Is Federer the best male tennis player of all time?  Was Ali the greatest?  Maradona or Pele (or Zidane, etc.)?  Liverpool of the late 70s early 80s, Man U of the 90s?  They make some interesting debates though!

But can you say Asafa Powell is better than Greene or Lewis just becuase he ran faster once?

Even with absolute times, the ability to train with more precision in some areas that athletes couldn't fine tune as much (ie diet) surely makes today's crop have an advantage?

Perhaps the real trick in athletics is having a world record that is not broken for many years. ie Bubka, Coe, Johnson, Edwards, Jackson, Moses etc. This at least proves they were way ahead of not only their generation but ones that followed.

Not very clued up on cricket and cycling. Interesting to note that in days gone by there were always 2/3 or 4 top men in most sports competing against each other.

Nowadays there constantly seems to be 1 superstar who emerges ala, Woods, Federer, Armstrong, Michael Johnson, Michael Jordan.

I have a theory that nowadays the rewards are so high for being 2nd/3rd etc that a lot of sportsman are happy to accept second place.

Geo

Intruiging post Geo. Are there any rivalries at the very top of sports these days?

Federer/Nadal. I'm struggling here.

This was partly the reason for my post, I struggled too.

In snooker for example, Steve Davis then Stephen Hendry dominated different decades and all the time Jimmy White was there or thereabouts, gaining the reputation of the nearly man. Ronnie O'Sullivan currently is without doubt the greatest cueman ever but lacks the motivation of the likes of Davis/Hendry to dominate. Accept he may well have other psychological problems.

Geo.

2 very good posts.

I also prefer to measure greatness on longevity at the top and how far beyond the boundaries a sportsman/woman has taken their sport.

In motor racing for example, we got excited by Damon Hill/David Coulthard/Eddie Irvine and Jensen Button (possibly Brit media led) but they never really matured into the greats we had hoped.

Lewis Hamilton is the next up and I feel however that this lad may well be different and will become a great. I just feel that having listened to some of his interviews he is more well balanced and focussed on the job in hand than the benefits to be gained.

Geo

Not necessarily better - just faster.  Bannister's 4-minute mile is a good case in point.  All top middle-distance runners can beat his time now - but his achievement in his day is far greater in comparative terms to those who run 3m50s miles today.  El Guerrouj was a class apart in that distance in recent times though, and yes you could have the debate as to who history will look on as 'greater' based on their achievements in their own era. 


Yes, I agree.  Compare Zátopek and Bekele.  Bekele's times are obviously better - but what Zátopek achieved was incredible. 


I agree, but the problem with this is when two 'legends' come onto the scene in close proximity. Haile Gebrselassie was (and still is a legend - and he always has that smile on his face ;d), and many thought his records would last a good few years.  Then Bekele came along, his protégé, and wiped out many of Gebrselassie's records before he'd even retired from track racing.  No one would argue that Gebrselassie isn't a great, and it would have been brilliant to see a young Gebrselassie in his prime up against Bekele. 

Ed Moses - he went for years without losing.  I've just done a search and he was undefeated for nine years, nine months and nine days, for 122 consecutive races!  Kevin Young broke his 16-year old record and it still stands 15 years later.  Most people would say that Moses was the 'greater' of the two, but obviously Young ran the quickest time.  Again - if only these two could have been around at the same time!

No disrespect to Kevin young but from memory, he came out of nowhere and didn't do a hell of a lot after his WR time. Ed Moses as you rightly say was an absolute legend.

I hold Moses in higher esteem - no doubt about it.  But Young was also an all-time great.  The fact his record still stands (and he could have shaved a few tenths off that time if he hadn't slowed before the line), is testament to that.

Moses is an all time great in my book and one of the reasons I don't hate Althetics as much as I should. Same goes for Ottey.

Anyone remember the 100m in the Commonwealth games when Wells and McFarlane both won the gold medal as they couldn't be split on the photo finish?

Just me then? 

:dontask:

I think the top players in each sport probably are the best ever, and not only because advances in training/technology and the greater number of hours training afforded by professionalism allow them to be better, but because these same advantages allow everyone else to be better as well.

Look at snooker. There haven't been any huge technological advantages in the sport in the past thirty years, yet when you watch old snooker footage from way back, the players were rubbish. Seeing a century break was a huge thing. Now players rattle them in with regularity, even ones who we would not consider as the absolute best players around. Considering that, for someone like Ronnie O'Sullivan to have his talent recognised as being extra special is a greater accolade than saying that Steve Davis was noticeably better than Kirk Stevens or Tony Knowles, because the players that Ronnie is better than are much better than Stevens or Knowles.

Instead of the top players having played since they were fourteen and practicing 4 hours a day, the top players now have been playing since they were seven and practice 7 or 8 hours a day - of course they're going to be better.

This is why people like Tiger Woods and Roger Federer are rightly lauded as being the best ever - they're far clear of everyone else today, when the general standard in their sport is higher than it's ever been.

Also, in most sports, you are directly competing against your contemporaries, so your challenge is tougher. Looking at athletics world records doesn't give a true indication of who is best because you are comparing someone who has all the advantages of today's advances in training/nutrition with people in the past who didn't - of course today's athletes will be quicker. Having a world record stand for a long time though, will enhance the reputation of whoever holds it, but that can only ever happen retrospectively. EDIT: I've essentially rewritten what the Baron said - should have read his properly first.

I'm a bit wary about including Michael Schumacher and Lance Armstrong in all this, because their achievements rely too much on outside factors (Ferrari mechanics and pharmaceutical experts) for their input to be properly evaluated.

It's all relative..


short version of the above post :P

but....with reference to Schumacher...I saw evidence in several articles, where they had put he and his team mate in the same car one after the other and then showed the telemetry of the laps...Schumacher consistently stayed off the brakes longer, shaved a few hundredths here and there and the other fella could not get close to him.

Clearly if he had been stuck in a tractor all career then he would not even be mentioned in these conversations, but there is no doubting that he is right up there. Whether one coudl say he is above a Senna/Fangio I couldn't possibly say

Interesting that you only mention the cycling and performance enhancing substances. This has been just as big a problem in Athletics and Swimming in recent years.

Am not saying that all Athletes and Swimmers use them, however it does put doubts in the mind as to the validity of some recent records.

Geo

The drugs problem is in any sport where there is little or no actual skill - where the best person is the quickest/strongest/has the most stamina.

I'm not denying that Schumacher is not the best driver of the past ten years or so, but exactly how much better was his car than the other cars? Were Fangio/Senna's cars better than everyone else's by a greater or lesser margin?

We just don't know, which makes direct comparision even harder than for other sports.

Athletics is at the forefront of drugs testing - but they're always playing catch-up (much like Roger Black running after Michael Johnson) and are one step behind.

Other sports are light-years behind the testing done in athletics.  As Andrew has stated, as athletics is all about faster, higher, stronger - so the benefits from drug taking are directly relevant.  However, with the current state of professional sport across the board I'm sure that many (most) sports are riddled with drug cheats.  Maybe the organisations behind these sports can't (or don't want to) catch the cheats?

There are certainly some dubious records.  For example. the Chinese athlete who broke the 10,000m record by 40-odd seconds, but hasn't been able to get anywhere near this in other races since.  I'm sure there's going to be a fair amount of controversy at the Beijing Olympics - in all events not just athletics.

There are also the athletes who are very much against drug-cheats, and are vocal about it.  Paula Radcliffe is one, and it is a shame that the whole of athletics is often tarred by the same brush when there are people like Paula who have achieved outstanding records and wins.

 

Good post.

I'm sure athletics is rife with drugs cheats. Even some "all time greats" are dubious for me. Maurice Greene is one very suspect guy for me.

One season he's America's number 2 sprinter and getting beaten in the Olympics quite convincingly, the next he's built like Arnie and running 9.86 to win the World Championships. Add Christie, Montgomery, Jones, Thannou and Gatlin into the mix and we're struggling for a decent 100m sprinter who didn't cheat in recent years.

The 100m is the most obvious candidate for drug cheats.  The difference between medals is a hundredth of a second, and there is also the huge bonuses these runners get for breaking records.  Looking at the recent crop of 100m runners, it is difficult to pull out any who are definitely clean, and that's sad.  I'd like to think that Frankie Fredericks never cheated - but who knows?

As we've said throughout the thread, due to advances athletes are running faster and faster.  But there is a point for the 100m that will reach the limits of what is humanly possible.  Will we ever see someone run a 9 second 100m?  To break the record in 10-20 years time it might require something 'unnatural'.

Beyond the actual athletes taking drugs, what about parents taking drugs to affect their unborn baby to help produce an 'athlete'.  Who's to say that people aren't using gene-manipulation techniques to 'breed' super-fast runners?  It's not really science fiction stuff, it's just taking what the East Germans did to the next level - and using the latest technologies available.

If scientists are able to 'create' people with certain physical attributes such as ridiculously long legs and super-fast twitching muscles, etc., would these genetically-modified athletes be banned from competing?

Great Thread

I would say there have been massive technological advances in Snooker compared with 30 years ago.
The manufacture of tables to start with, no multi piece slate bases, laser machined rails and cushions, advanced synthetic cloth, precision tooling of pockets and angles.  Thats without looking at cues and balls, tips, practice environment etc.  All of this helps provide a more precise playing area and makes the game easier thus giving the modern player an advantage over his peer from 30 years ago.  I can't think of any sport that is so pure it has not benefited from technology.

As for Drugs and genetics arguments somebody has already mentioned the legal bodies are always playing catch up, and it is ruining sport especially field sports, I don't think anyone will ever break the 100 metres record and be free of suspicion, just as if somebody manages to take off 30 seconds from their PB in a 10k walk race at a local club, drugs and roids are rife people will always wonder - and for me that is why the beauty of sport diminishes with age, because we all get more cynical, there is more evidence to help you not believe.

We are lucky, I have seen Warne spin a ball, Rossi ride a bike (a true legend), Johnson win the 200 metres and even Zidane take a free kick these people are the future they will hook our kids in, they will inspire the next generation, but lets just hope they inspire them to greatness not inspire them to win at all costs and cheat the system.

Unfortunately, children growing up and aspiring to be the next world champ in whichever sport are seeing the cheats prosper.

Look at Milan last night.  Not really punishment for a team found guilty of systematic corruption (which helped them qualify for the Champions League in the first place).  The Italians in that team are also members of the current world champions.  Now it might not be the individual players involved in the corruption - but the old adage of 'cheats never prosper' is obviously nonsense in this case.

Nakor mentioned Shane Warne.  Undoubtedly the best bowler of all-time (in my book anyway), but also found guilty of taking banned substances.  Even the greats are tarnished - but often we look away and implicitly condone it.

Hellmuth Vs Chan Vs Brunson Vs Ungar....

Comparable?

The first 3 are, they are all playing at the top level today, the latter was a degenerate gambler/drug addict who ran hot. Still a class player, but i would put him alongside the likes of TJ.

Valentino Rossi ,  greatest rider of all time.

  Another rider on 2 wheels called Nicolas Voullioz won 10 world DH mtb titles in twelve seasons competing ( 1995 onwards ), he is so talented at sport, he switched to rally driving and won the French rally championship soon after. He will be in the World Rally Championship next year and he is only 29 years old,  he has already dominated one sport and he will most likely do it with rallying as well.

Sebastian Loeb, possibly the most complete rally driver of all time.

I like Senna more,  he was my hero since I was a tiny kid.  However,  Schumacher is better all round.  Ok,  Senna had as tough competition while competing ( Mansell, Prost, Patrese, Rosberg, Piquet, etc, etc ) . But, Schumacher's career overlapped two era's in many ways, not only did he compete against many of these guys.... he also had to compete against Hakkinen at his peak and also Villeneauve.  JV comes under a lot of criticism now, but how many other drivers have the chance this weekend to get the triple crown of the f1 world title, Indy 500 and the Le Mans 24hrs.  JV could possibly do that this weekend at Le Mans for Team Peugeot. Only Graham Hill has done that.   Schumacher's first two titles in 94 and 95 were achieved in a Benneton which technically was inferior to Hill's Williams .  Over this period Schumacher had a few handy team mates who were destroyed by him in exactly the same car.  He is truly awesome.

Bekele just ran an amazing run in Sheffield in the 3,000m.  Fastest time in the world this year, British all-comers record, and the 7th fastest time ever.  Absolutely stunning kick with just over 2 laps to go.

;tightend;

He is a legend.

Bekele just showed his class again in the 10,000m at the world championships.  Pushed by the other runners to the limit as they tried everything to produce a race that gave them a chance against him.  with a lap to go, it looked like he was dropping off the front two, but stayed in contention and an amazing last lap and retains his unbeaten record at the 10,000m.

Brilliant from Bekele.

Asafa Powell is the biggest bottle job since Leroy Burrell.

It's amazing how he just blows up in the big competitions.  Surely that's down to the coaching.  He needs to work with Derren Brown or someone.

The scary thing is how good he could be. I wouldn't ever take anything away fom Tyson Gay but I'm sure Powell could run  sub 9.75 with the right preparation. He just cant relax in major finals.

Just seen the last rounds of the mens 200m and i have to say that Bolt was impressive (not you Mr PP!) ;)

Anyone see Paula Radcliffe in the New York marathon yesterday?  Absolutely brilliant. 

It looked for all the world that Wami was just waiting on Paula's shoulder to sprint by her at the end. She managed to put some distance between herself and Wami, but Wami seemed to be able to close it with ease. When she overtook Paula with less than a mile to go, it looked like it was all over, and again Wami had managed to beat Paula with her fast finish.

But Paula had other ideas and responded with a devastating finish that showed her class and determination. Utterly superb.

;tightend;

Both of them had excuses lined up if they didn't win. Paula's first marathon since 2005 (and of course since having her baby), and Wami had run the Berlin marathon 5 weeks earlier. But neither wanted to lose that race. Beijing will be a cracker.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/athletics/7077867.stm

I would argue that playing on a modern table with the fine cloth, with the consistent roll they produce, and the cushions make playing now a fair bit easier than 30 years ago, but yes, there are far far better players than there used to be... I mean anyone can knock in a 100+ break now cant they...  ;whistle;

interesting "flash" article from the guardian
sport.guardian.co.uk/flash/olympics_thenvsnow.swf
was surprised that owens would only be 5m behind in the 100m,even after all the advances during an seventy year period(proffesionalism,dietry and possible drug use).
i must admit i rarely watch athletics lately as it seems tainted by steroid misuse over the last decade.
colin