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ESPN just released an article on the top athletes of the 21st century. The list is…interesting.
Shocking Phelps is ranked No 1. This is contra evidence against culture war fodder. He is white, male, and I assume straight. But then, their No 2 is Serena. The list is allegedly about how great they were at their sport. There is no good argument where Serena had a better career than Novak Djokovic. Novak has more slams, masters, career grand slams, only golden master, calendar slam, weeks at No 1. And Novak did it against the two other greatest tennis players of all time. Serena’s field was weaker. And of course, Serena wouldn’t last on the ATP whereas Novak wouldn’t lose a set on the WTA.
But Serena became famous for being good at a white sport while being black. And Novak (who shocking is ranked lower than Roger Fed despite clearly being better) is famous for refusing to take the covid vaxx.
So culture war? But then how do I explain Phelps at No 1? Maybe ESPN is just bad at its job? After all Brady is at five. On the other hand, ESPN has a ton of WNBA players on the list. Which is funny. The WNBA is not a good league and doesn’t generate (at least historically) a lot of money. There is no way the three of the top 34 athletes of the 21st century are WNBA players. Yet shockingly no female soccer players that high. What am I missing?
ETA: 8 of the top 100 athletes of the 21st century happen to be WNBA players per ESPN. And that is out of all Olympic sports, soccer, cricket, football, hockey, MMA, etc. Why so many WNBA players — a minor league that wouldn’t generate sufficient revenue to attract this alleged level of talent.
https://www.espn.com/espn/story/_/id/40446224/top-100-athletes-21st-century
It's a bad list, and it keeps getting worse as you go on.
It is an American list meant to make American sports and sportspeople look great. Ah yes, 56/100 are American and 17/100 are from Baseball, a sport that is played by Americans and Dominicans, and the 30x smaller country is somehow better.
From a competitiveness perspective, Tennis and Swimming are nowhere close to (real) Football. Messi is by far the greatest player to have every played football, and also the greatest sportsperson of all time. (not just the 21st century). Unlike every other sports person, Messi was the best player in the world when most players start their careers (~20) and stayed the very best for the next 15 years. Messi (not unlike Gretsky) could be 2 players, and they would be the #1 and #2 greatest players of all time.
When one nation uniformly dominates a sport, then you know that it isn't THAT competitive. Swimming is one such example. I can speak about swimming because I personally know family members who were nationally (one of them was in the US) ranked top-10 swimmers for their age. Either my family is uniquely suited for swimming. Or, they have the 1 trait all my family members share, which is ruthless ladder climbing (Tier 0 tiger moms in my family). Swimming as a sport uniquely rewards hard-work. Which tells you that it is not competitive enough. You can't work hard at soccer and get good. You need to be insanely gifted, then work hard, and that gets you into the 4th tier of English football. Now Phelps' dominance of swimming was large enough, that I'd still give him #2. But, Messi is #1. Speaking of swimming, Ledecky deserves as shoutout for the top 20.
Djokovic - Federer & Nadal having close head-to-heads helps none of them. I wouldn't put any of them on the top 10.
Sports I think shouldn't qualify for more than 1 name:
tldr:
If you are talking about careers, then Barry Bonds. He had two inner circle HoF careers. He is just absurd. Mahomes likely will get there.
But I would say Mario is the GOAT. Dude got chemo. Later that day he suited up and scored a goal on his first shift. Just absurd stuff. Most naturally gifted player ever.
Chess isn’t a sport but Magnus is awesome.
Murray I agree. Great tennis player but he is clearly far behind the big three and probably even Alcaraz. He is more Stanimal territory. Agree re WNBA as well.
Anyone who cheated (steroids in his case) doesn't belong on a list of greatest athletes. And if that means the list is empty, then so be it. Great athleticism requires doing it the honest way.
Yeah but realistically most of the candidates here would be using something.
Usain Bolt an outlier upon outliers in a very simple/easily-optimized sport in which most of his contemporaries popped for doping at some point? Either he's like 3-4 levels of outlier from the fastest people ever, or he was doing approximately the same stuff and was only a tier ahead.
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