Best athletes ever

LegacyUser

Top 50 athletes:
http://www.geocities.com/raindog_bigtime/athlete50.htm

He calculated these using some points system based on WRs achieved and performances in Olympics and Worlds. Lewis and Bubka seem to be in a league of their own!!

Oldest world records:
http://www.geocities.com/raindog_bigtime/oldestWR.htm

Tim-Thrower Tim

Interesting. I wonder if for the jumpers and throwers he included the fact that they might have broken a world record more than once in a competition and only be credited with one? Syedikh broke the hammer record 3 times in Cork, Litvinov twice all in the same meet but I think only Syedikh was credited with a WR from the meet. Must be plenty of times Zelezny did the same in the Javelin. Of course I biased and would love to see a thrower at the top.

Tim-Thrower Tim

Days Y-M-D Athlete Nation Mark Event Venue Date Beaten Alternative
8771 24y0m5d Pat Ryan USA 57.77 hammer New York 17.08.13 22.08.37 27.08.38
92 19y11m18d Peter O'Connor IRL 7.61 long j. Dublin 05.08.1901 23.07.21
4396 12y0m13d Pat O'Callaghan IRL 59.56 hammer Fermoy 22.08.37. 04.09.49

And Pat Ryan was actually from Old Pallas, Co. Limerick, cool an Irish guy had the second longest lasting record ever:)

LegacyUser

Just cheaking out those longest held records, and i have to say that some of the ones that still stand are very hard to imagine being broken in the forseeable future. Anyone care to speculate which ones will last the longest and, shock horror, if any of them are the actual ultimate a human being can achieve. Michael Johnson's 200m could be argued to belong to this category. Pole Vaulters aren't reaching 6m these days, not to mention 15cm beyond. High Jump major championships barely get past 2:35cm most of the time. Off the top of my head, i'd say these 3 records will last longest, high and pole maybe 15-20 more years, Johnsons 200m...i can't get my head around anyone touching that. (with the one possible exception of Tim Montgomery and Marion Jones' baby)

LegacyUser

Originally posted by Guest 2000
Pole Vaulters aren't reaching 6m these days, not to mention 15cm beyond.

The BBC commentators at the weekend basically said the same thing. They reconed that it will be years before somebody emulates Bubka because of some technical changes to the shape of the bar and the size of the pins that it rests upon. Any pole-vaulters out there know exactly what changed and how much of an impact it makes?? I guess it just means that the bar is easier to knock down when you brush against it??

clueless.

Dan Kavanagh

"Anyone care to speculate which ones will last the longest and, shock horror, if any of them are the actual ultimate a human being can achieve."

What about Flo Jo's 100m record.? If Marian Jones can't beat it, its hard to see how any one else will.

MartinNutty

Interesting that he ranks 30th on the list. I figured 4 Consecutive Olympic golds and a few WRs would have him higher.

Martin