Top Ten Athletic Feats of All Time

[MylesBAstor]

In no particular order:

Bannister breaking the 4 min barrier in the mile
Beamon jumping 29 ft. 21/2 inches (breaking the previous record by by almost 2 feet)
Wilt scoring 100 pts./averaging 50.4 ppg in the 60-61 season (Wilt interestingly also hold the next two high season ppg too with 44.8 and 38.4
Rod Laver winning his second grand slam in 69
Hank Aaron breaking Babe Ruths HR record
Ted Williams hitting .406 in '41 (think about all the records broken and the likelihood this will ever be broken)
Joe Dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak
Michael Phelps breaking Mark Spitz seven gold medals in Olympic swimming
The Miracle on Ice
UCLA men's basketball seven straight NCAA titles (67-73)/88 game winning streak

 

[docvale]

I would also consider:

Usain Bolt - 9'58" on the 100m
Michael Schumacher - basically every existing record in Formula 1 racing (ok, it's not a "normal" sport)
Diego A. Maradona - greatest goal ever (Argentina-England 2-1, World Cup 1986)
Pele' - >1000 goals in his career, 3 times World Champion
Sergey Bubka - 35 times world record holder in pole vault
Valentina Vezzali - greatest fencer ever, period (Italian noblesse oblige )

 

[JackD201]

Wilt's 55 rebounds in a game. As such, I think he deserves two entries in the list

Nadia Comaneci's perfect 10s.

Carl Lewis' 4 long jump golds in FOUR olympic games.

 

[MylesBAstor]

I would also consider:

Usain Bolt - 9'58" on the 100m
Michael Schumacher - basically every existing record in Formula 1 racing (ok, it's not a "normal" sport)
Diego A. Maradona - greatest goal ever (Argentina-England 2-1, World Cup 1986)
Pele' - >1000 goals in his career, 3 times World Champion
Sergey Bubka - 35 times world record holder in pole vault
Valentina Vezzali - greatest fencer ever, period (Italian noblesse oblige )

Having been a fencer, get a feeling there's some sort of Nationalism going on (thought you might go with Nadi or Santelli from Italy ).

Now being a little prejudiced having been a saber fencer, I would have come up with a couple different suggestions such as Aladar Gerevich:

ALADAR GEREVICH - Hungary

Aladar Gerevich is the only athlete in any sport to win the same Olympic event six times. Indeed, he is the only athlete to earn gold medals in six different Olympics. Gerevich made his first Olympic appearance at the 1932 Los Angeles Games when he was 22 years old, earning his first gold medal as a member of Hungary's sabre team. Gerevich returned to the 1948 Olympics stronger than ever. Not only did he win another gold medal in the team sabre, he earned the gold medal in the individual sabre. At the 1952 Helsinki Games, Gerevich won gold in team sabre He made his final Olympic appearance at the 1960 Rome Games - at the age of 50 - earning yet another gold medal in the team sabre

or

Rudy Karpati, another Hungarian:

RUDOLF KARPATI (1921 - 1999) - Hungary

Six-time Olympic champion and seven-time world champion fencer from Hungary. He was an Olympic champion in 1948, 1952, 1956, 1960 as part of a team, and individually in 1956 and 1960. His world championships were in 1953, 1954, 1955, 1957, 1958, as part of the team and individual world champion in 1954 and 1959. He was a professional musicologist and wrote a lecture series on the relationship between music and fencing footwork.

Jerzy was my favorite having seen him and fenced against him:

JERZY PAWLOWSKI (1933 - ) - Hungary

Polish Olympic fencer was a colonel of Polish intelligence. He approached and offered his services.Pawlowski was arrested in April 1974 and sentenced to prison for twenty-five years in 1975.10 years later Pawlowski was taken to Berlin and offered to be exchanged in Frankfurt for the Polish spy Marian Zacharski. Zacharski had been caught and imprisoned in the US.Pawlowski declined the offer to travel to the US. He was returned to Poland and released then.He began fencing at 16. He took his second world sabre title in 1965. He would give lessons with a sabre in each hand their blades moving so fast that even experienced onlookers could not follow the action.

 

[docvale]

I was obviously and deliberately nationalistic, Myles

Italy and Hungary are the two countries with the biggest history in fencing (it's the group of disciplines that gave Italy the highest amount of olympic medals) so I guess wherever you pick, you can pick well

I chose Valentina as she is, together with Federica Pelligrini (swimmer and holder of a number of world records), the symbol of Italian female sport. Ironically, no Italian watches fencing but during the Games

At least, I refrained to mention Italian soccer players or teams (this is not the right moment for Italian soccer ).
Just a soccer anecdote, though. In the late '40s (so, before the establishment of the UEFA competitions), the Torino soccer club was the most respected team around. Beating the current record of Barcelona (for Spain), Torino provided 10 of the starting 11 of the Italian Team, which was supposed to defend, in the 1950 World Cup in Brazil, the title of world champions. Sadly, all the Torino players died in an aircrash in 1949 (an event remembered in Italy as "the tragedy of Superga"). The Italian Federation sent to Brazil a "last minute" team (by boat, flights were forbidden, so it took weeks to arrive) and Italy was kicked out at the first round.

 

[Orb]

Wilt's 55 rebounds in a game. As such, I think he deserves two entries in the list

Nadia Comaneci's perfect 10s.

Carl Lewis' 4 long jump golds in FOUR olympic games.

I see your four golds and raise you 1
Steve Redgrave golds in FIVE olympic games hehe (84 to 2000).
I think there may be one or two others who may also have gold from five game but not sure - Steve may be the only one *shrug*

Cheers
Orb

 

[Orb]

Also as mentioned in other thread, needs to be Lance Armstrong (innocent until proven guilty IMO) 7 TdF wins.
Cheers
Orb

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Wayne Gretzky

 

[Johnny Vinyl]

Lionel Messi - 5 goals in a recent Championship leage game. Never been done before and likely not to happen again.

 

[Ronm1]

I'm bias and no medals here but Dave Roberts with The steal. Makes it by about 2ns, as everyone knows he's goin' and there is a fine throw and sweep tag. No steal, just another miserable post season in 04'

 

[Ron Party]

Ted Williams hitting .406 in '41 (think about all the records broken and the likelihood this will ever be broken)
Joe Dimaggio's 56 game hitting streak

Highlighting a couple of amazing baseball feats which may never be broken and adding one more:

Rickey. 130 steals in 1982, 1406 in his career.

 

[Gregadd]

It appeared that Moses Malone and the Utah Jazz were close to beating the Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls in the playoffs. Moses Malone had the ball in hand. Michael Jordan ran by in pursuit of of another Jazz player. Malone no doubt thought he was clear of the pesky Jordan. Jordan realed around and snatched the ball from Malones hand. They went on to win the game and another NBA Championship. Unbeleivable!

 

[JackD201]

You mean Karl Malone

Oh by the way, I think Tiger winning the US Open on one leg is right up there too.

 

[Gregadd]

Thanks Jack it was Karl "the Mailman " Malone. I actulaly met Moses Malone when he was in high school Petersburg Va.


Tigers whole career is pretty amazing. If he wins the Matsers next week his comeback will be the greatest. Yesterday another great golfer melted in his presence.

 

[Gregadd]

Highlighting a couple of amazing baseball feats which may never be broken and adding one more:

Rickey. 130 steals in 1982, 1406 in his career.

Arguably the best leadoff hitter in the history of baseball. If he got to first base second was a given. He hit line drive home runs. I saw him get caught off first , almost literally, he beat the balll to second base.

 

[Ron Party]

Yep. We called it a Rickey Rally. Walk, steal second, steal third, sacrificed home. Automatic run without a hit.

 

[Gregadd]

Just wondering Ron was he able to steal home with any success?

 

[docvale]

I have another couple of Italian nationalistic citations

Pietro Mennea running the 200m in 19.72. It was 1979 and the record lasted till 1996 (it's still the European record)

Italy vs Germany 4-3. It was the semifinal of the World Cup in 1970 (Italy then lost the final against Brazil). The most exciting extra-times ever, with the German captain Franz Beckenbauer playing them with an immobilized arm as he broke his shoulder during the match and Germany ran out of substitutions. There's a milestone, in that stadium, for the memory of that epic match

 

[Steve Williams]

 

[Mike]

I have another couple of Italian nationalistic citations

Pietro Mennea running the 200m in 19.72. It was 1979 and the record lasted till 1996 (it's still the European record)

Italy vs Germany 4-3. It was the semifinal of the World Cup in 1970 (Italy then lost the final against Brazil). The most exciting extra-times ever, with the German captain Franz Beckenbauer playing them with an immobilized arm as he broke his shoulder during the match and Germany ran out of substitutions. There's a milestone, in that stadium, for the memory of that epic match

Was Dino Zoff the keeper for Italy? That was a very good Brazil side, so losing to them was no disgrace!