v2 G.O.A.T Round 1 Group 5

Another 81 votes in yesterday’s group which was battled out between footballing icon Diego Maradona, legendary Welsh scrum half Gareth Edwards, golfing hall of famer Bobby Jones and Champion Jockey Tony McCoy. At close of play Maradona had comfortably clinched the group with 51% of the vote followed by Edwards who joins him in the next round with 31% of the vote

Today’s group sees Motor Racing, Cricket and Athletics compete for your votes.

We have three participants championed today with articles written by forum members; please feel free to submit your own argument below for those not championed.

Please vote for the competitor you believe has achieved the most in sport and should progress into the next round.

Please leave a comment as to why you voted

Michael Johnson- Athletics- Champion by 88chris05

I was eight years old in 1996 and, as a result, the Atlanta Games of that year are the first Olympic Games I can remember properly - and for any sports fan, that's a serious footnote in your memory. It says much about the greatness of the man I'm writing about here that, whenever I think back to that summer of 1996 and the Olympics, the first thing to enter my head is never the Games themselves, and nor is it a collection of moments. Instead, it's just one name which crops up instantly - Michael Johnson.

It took some nerve - or, you might even say, some well-placed arrogance - to wear those golden running spikes, and it must also have taken a large helping of self-belief and stubbornness to ignore the plethora of coaches who had told him right throughout his college and junior career to abandon his unusual 'duck' style of running in favour of the traditional high knee lift, long strides and pumping arms which we usually associate with sprinting. But both the running spikes and that unique style had me hooked from 1996 onwards and I became determined to find out all I could about the man who came away with three gold medals on the track from those Games.

With the emergence of Usain Bolt in recent times, it's easy to forget that, just ten to fifteen years earlier, there was one man on the track who blew everyone's mind and redefined the parameters just as much as the brilliant Jamaican. In fact, I'd argue that Johnson, in many ways, redefined them even more than Bolt has.

For starters, his dominance of the 400m throughout the nineties must be right up there with the greatest spells of dominance in any one event in history. Before Johnson, whose incredible feats earned him the nickname 'Superman', no man had ever won the 400m title at back to back Olympics. Johnson did this at a canter, taking the gold medal in the one lap event at Atlanta in '96 and at Sydney four years later. He won four successive world titles at that same distance, too, from 1993 right up until 1999. His fifty-four consecutive 'finals' wins in the 400m is, of course, a record - so far ahead of his peers in that event is he, that comparisons are pretty pointless.

But there were more notable 'firsts' in Johnson's career. The 100m-200m double is, of course, a rare achievement, the sort which only the giants of sporting history (Owens, Lewis, Bolt etc) have managed. But do you know what's been an even rarer achievement in men's track and field? The 200m-400m double. Because once more, before this remarkable Texan came along, absolutely nobody had managed to win the two events together at the Olympics - or at any major championships, for that matter. Not content with making history once by doing so at the 1995 World Championships in Gothenburg, Johnson made it two 'doubles' in as many years at the following summer's Olympics. And which man has replicated this feat since? That's right - absolutely none of them.

Usain Bolt's double of the 100m-200m (or even his 'double double' of doing the 100m-200m act at two successive Olympics, a feat which he controversially shares with Carl Lewis) make him one of a few, but Johnson's achievements really do make him one of a kind.

I think it's key to remember, also, that the 400m takes on a very different dynamic to the shorter sprints. Unlike the 100m or the 200m, the 400m discipline takes a different type of training, a large amount of kidology and tactics. There is no element of just running flat out as fast as you can; pacing yourself, the concept of even-paced running, adapting to running two bends ect all make it a different ball game. Genuinely, I feel that Johnson's ability to adapt so perfectly to both events make him a serious contender to be considered the finest track athlete the world has ever seen.

Johnsons' gold medal tally in the 200m (two World Championships, one Olympics) doesn't read quite as staggeringly (but is still only surpassed by a certain Mr Bolt, mind you!) but, as I mentioned above, I genuinely think that Johnson expanded the ideas of what was possible in this event more than anyone else has thus far in his own way. In track and field, particularly in the sprints, you seldom see a world record which lasts more than three or four years, generally speaking. It's amazing what the human body can do when you're setting its every faculty towards a certain mark - for instance, Roger Bannister's four minute mile in 1954 was considered superhuman and, almost, a case of someone doing the impossible, and yet it lasted as a world record for a mere six weeks.

So then, let's keep in mind that Pietro Mennea's 200m world record of 19.72 seconds had stood for a whole seventeen years by 1996, remarkable in a sport which is pitted so often against the clock. At the Olympic trials that year, Johnson edged it out with a 19.66, a fantastic feat in itself, but what he did in the Olympics themselves in that event will stay with me forever. Even as an eight year old, I knew I was watching something remarkable. But it's only looking back that I can fully appreciate the magnitude of Johnson's gold medal winning performance.

Johnson won the gold in a staggering 19.32 seconds, a whole .34 of a second ahead of his own personal best (by an absolute mile the most that anyone has improved a short sprint record since the introduction of electronic timing in the sixties), and .36 ahead of second-placed Frankie Fredericks who, just weeks earlier, had beaten Johnson and was fancied by many to do so again (a shell-shocked Fredericks remarked after the race, "If I'd have known that Michael was going to run 19.32, I wouldn't have bothered showing up."). Ato Boldon, who took the bronze medal, went to Johnson after the race and bowed, later commenting that Johnson's race that night was "fifty years ahead of its time."

Now, I know what you're all thinking. Rather than fifty, the record 'only' lasted for twelve years (still a hell of a long time by track and field standards, of course) before Usain Bolt narrowly beat it with his wonderful 19.30 in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. But as I said before, it's amazing what can be done by the human body when its sole focus is on a time which you have the luxury of shooting for. Basically, if someone can run a 19.32, you know that it's a real possibility and, in many ways, inevitable that someone can eventually go 19.30 or better, like Bolt has. Edging a world record out like that is the norm.

However, totally obliterating one like Johnson did most certainly isn't. With Mennea's 19.72 came the realisation that humans could and eventually would be running in the 19.6 bracket. With Johnson's 19.66 three months before Atlanta came the realisation that maybe, just maybe, we could see a high 19.5 time in our lifespan if we were lucky. Absolutely nobody, however, would have ever dared conjour up the the thought of a man eating up 200m of track in a low 19.3 time. It boggled the mind, tore up all logic and left a world-wide audience, including BBC commentator David Coleman, saying "this man surely isn't human!"

When Bolt broke the 200m world record, there were loud cheers in my house. However, when Johnson ran that 19.32 in Atlanta, there was nothing but a stunned silence, followed by a series of glances which seemd to be asking, 'Did I really just see that?'

And of course, Johnson's 400m world record still remains intact at 43.18 seconds, despite thirteen and a half years having passed since he finally set it at the 1999 World Championships in Seville. Again, it's worth noting that, in track and field, world records that can last a decade or more come at a premium. From the top of my head, I do believe that Michael Johnson is the only man to have set a world record lasting a decade or longer in two individual events since the introduction of electronic timing, and it says a hell of a lot about the man's accomplishments that you have to scroll a fair way down his CV to find a fact as impressive as that!

In all, Johnson stepped on to a podium to collect thirteen medals at either the Olympic Games or World Championships during his career - and ever single one of them was gold.

And as if his towering accomplishments weren't enough, he still manged to show what sportsmanship should be all about in 2008 when, after his relay team mate Antonio Pettigrew admitted under oath that he had used performance enhancing substances throughout the late nineties and early twenty-first century, Johnson voluntarily returned his Gold medal won with Pettigrew and two others in the 4x400m relay at the Sydney Olympics of 2000. In an age where far too many are adopting a relaxed attitude to doping in sport, Johnson's gesture, to me at least, added to his greatness even more, if that were at all possible.

It's a terrible shame that, a certain Mr Carl Lewis aside, track and field athletes have often struggled to receive their dues over in the States, because in Michael Johnson they really did have one of the finest sportsman to have graced the planet. To me, Johnson is everything a sporting great should be.

Juan Manuel Fangio- Motor Sports- Championed by Pete C

"Formula One's first great champion is still widely regarded as the greatest driver of them all. The 4th son of a poor Italian migrant family, the Argentine apprenticed as a mechanic in the late 1920s, but National Service and a couple of seasons playing professional football delayed his driving career until the mid-1930s, whereupon he quickly made a name for himself in his home country, winning a couple of national touring car titles before war shortages curtailed motorsport, even in neutral Argentina.

In the late 40s Fangio was one of a number of drivers sponsored to Europe by Juan Peron, the dictator was keen for his countrymen to make their mark. After impressing in races in 1949 the 39 year old Fangio lined up for Formula 1's inaugural season in 1950 in a '30s Alfa Romeo. 3 wins and 3 DNFs from the 6 races he entered was enough to place him 2nd in the championship behind his team mate Farina.

Fangio won the 1951 title before missing the 1952 season recovering from injuries suffered in a crash at Monza (in hindsight, missing a connecting flight in Paris and driving through the night to arrive 30 minutes before the race start wasn't the best preparation). Returning in 1953 he was second in the championship behind the Ferrari of his great rival Ascari. The 1954-57 seasons were all Fangio though as he won all 4 titles driving Maseratis, Mercedes and Ferraris before opting to retire at the top, aged 47, during the 1958 season. That year he also escaped unharmed after being kidnapped by Fidel Castro’s Cuban revolutionaries, who were aiming to force the cancellation of the (non-F1) race he was in Cuba for.

Fangio was regarded as without peer at keeping an ailing car running at speed (vital given the poor reliability of cars in the 50s), and for the precision of his driving and his endurance. In 1957 he produced what is regarded as the greatest drive in F1 history - after a botched pit stop left him over 30 seconds behind the leading Ferraris he stormed around the Nurburgring to catch and pass them for the win, breaking the lap record 9 times, in a car with a broken seat. His fastest lap was 11 seconds faster than anyone else on the track.

While he was generally able to get drives in the fastest cars (frequently changing teams through his career) there were a lot more drivers with the quickest cars in those days – factory teams generally ran 3- or 4-car teams, and also sold cars to privateers. He was racing against (and usually beating) Sir Stirling Moss and Alberto Ascari, both themselves widely regarded among the greatest of F1 drivers.

In summary:

* 5-time Formula 1 World Champion, 2-time runner up in just 7 and a bit seasons in F1. Only Michael Schumacher has more titles.
* Won 24 out of 51 Formula 1 races started, 46% - still a record, and astounding considering he suffered car breakdowns in another 10 races (11%). It is also widely believed that he slowed down to allow his team mate (and later his pall bearer) Stirling Moss to become the first British driver to win the British Grand Prix in 1955.
* Started 92% of his F1 races from the front row, and 56% from pole position
* Oldest winner of an F1 title (he was 40 when he won his first and 46 for his last)"

Brain Lara- Cricket- Championed by VTR

We can all look at statistics when we try to decide who is the greatest but sometimes seeing with our own eyes is the only way to judge. Bradman’s average, Tendulkar’s runs, Sober’s all-round feats are all there in the record books, but for sheer aesthetics there is the man with the high back-lift and flashing blade that made batting look so elegant you knew you were witnessing something special: that man is Brian Charles Lara.

Equally as devastating when facing fast, spin bowling or anything in between, Lara had the ability to dominate any attack in any part of the world. With a Test career spanning 1990-2006, playing at a time when opposition bowling attacks were almost universally strong (Wasim & Waqar, McGrath & Warne, Donald & Pollock), here was a batsmen who would have all in the ground enthralled as he played every shot in the book with such panache you would think he was playing a different game to everyone else. As an opposition supporter you’d somehow want him to stay in and get out at the same time; you knew the damage he could do, yet you would always want to watch more.

And it’s not as if the style was lacking in the way of substance. Far, far from it. In 1994 Lara destroyed a capable England attack to help himself to 375 runs and take the record for the highest individual Test score, overtaking Sober’s 365 which had stood for 36 years. This was merely the start of a purple patch of an incredible 7 hundreds in 8 first-class innings, culminating in a record that could, like The Don’s Test average stand forever: an innings of 501 not out against Durham when playing for Warwickshire in the County Championship. An entire team is generally elated with an innings total of 500+, but such was his hunger for runs Lara was able to achieve that many on his own.

When Matthew Hayden bullied a club-standard Zimbabwe attack for 380 runs a decade later to take away the record of highest individual Test score, the world wept that such a prestigious record could be achieved against such poor opposition. Thankfully Lara wasn’t finished, and with mutterings of a decline during an unusually subdued home series in 2004 he astonishingly took the record back with a chanceless innings of 400 not out. England were again on the receiving end, and despite having dominated the series for a 3-0 lead at that point were powerless to stop another innings of absolute genius. To put this into context, the record individual Test score has only changed hands 4 times since the Second World War. Lara stands apart in having gained the record twice.

Do you need any more convincing? An overall Test average of 52.88 is 17th on the all-time list, which is exceptional given the bowling attacks he faced, the lack of reliable batting partners in his later career and the challenges of captaining a team that was often in crisis for a large part of that. As the Windies decline set in from the mid to late 1990’s, Lara often seemed to be fighting a lone battle as a once-dominant team started to taste defeat on a regular basis. One of his most astonishing feats was somehow dragging the Windies to a 2-2 draw against the great Australia team in 1999. His innings of 153 not out in securing a thrilling one wicket victory in the Third Test is rated by Wisden as the second greatest Test innings of all time. Even more remarkable is that just days earlier he’d scored 213 in setting up a shock victory in the Second Test to level the series.

I haven’t even mentioned one-day cricket yet where Lara was one of the masters of his age, averaging over 40 in the shorter form and playing an integral part in the Windies shock run to the 1996 World Cup final. Naturally there was a defining innings in there: his masterful 111 off just 94 balls knocked the stuffing out of South Africa in the Quarter Final.

Some say when he retired in 2007 it was too early, the flourish was still there, he could still make a difference (Lara had averaged 66 in his final Test Series). But as with those flashing strokes, I’d say his timing was perfect. We were not to be subjected to any tarnishing of memories as a slow decline set in: we witnessed and will remember nothing but sheer beauty.

Michael Johnson and Lara are two of my sporting hero's, so this is tough.

Johnson did win countless golds at two events plus relays and would have had gold in 1992 but for sickness. He is arguably the greatest track star there has been, so wins it for me.

Chris swayed me to Michael Johnson with a fantastic piece

sodhat wrote:Chris swayed me to Michael Johnson with a fantastic piece

Have to admit he's swaying me, and I wrote the piece on Fangio. Bravo Chris!

Aaaargh! I championed Lara as best I could but then see the horror draw that is Michael Johnson.

I'm discounting Fangio, great as he was due to machinery and taking part in a more amateur age.

The other one I've never heard of!

Going to have to think about my vote between the first two....

This is the toughest group so far IMO.
Absolute legends each and every one of them.
But, despite being a fan of Lara, and having the upmost respect for Zatopek and Fangio, I'll have to go for Johnson on this one.

I went with Lara. He scored 501, 375, 400, and many, many great innings on top of those. He carried that West Indies team through the post-Ambrose/Walsh period, and everyone feared him. I got his autograph once, he'd just gotten out for 99, but stopped and signed stuff for all the kids waiting for him. A true legend.

Johnson would be my second choice, although I don't like the man as an individual. He achieved a helluva lot.

I was going to go for MJ, as even being a cricket fan and a huge Brian Charles fan (possibly the most aesthetically pleasing looking player of all time, as well as being hugely effective) I thought he couldn't compete with Johnson. As a cursory thing I googled Zapotek and wow. Three gold medals at one Olympic games. Not in swimming, or cycling or a sport where multi eventers are common but he did the 5000m, 10000m and marathon treble. Remarkable.

I still think I will end up voting for MJ, but I will see where the debate goes first as it is not as cut and dry as I thought.

Azzy Mahmood wrote:I went with Lara. He scored 501, 375, 400, and many, many great innings on top of those. He carried that West Indies team through the post-Ambrose/Walsh period, and everyone feared him. I got his autograph once, he'd just gotten out for 99, but stopped and signed stuff for all the kids waiting for him. A true legend.

Johnson would be my second choice, although I don't like the man as an individual. He achieved a helluva lot.

Interesting Azzy, he seems a perfect gentleman on TV and is a great commentator/pundit.
What is it you don't like?

Azzy Mahmood wrote:I went with Lara. He scored 501, 375, 400, and many, many great innings on top of those. He carried that West Indies team through the post-Ambrose/Walsh period, and everyone feared him. I got his autograph once, he'd just gotten out for 99, but stopped and signed stuff for all the kids waiting for him. A true legend.

Johnson would be my second choice, although I don't like the man as an individual. He achieved a helluva lot.

Good choice! To add a bit more on Lara, as I didn't want to write a stat-fest, he scored 9 Test double hundreds, second only to Bradman. His first Test century was converted to a mammoth 277, against Australia as well. He was a rare combination of strokeplay and hunger for runs, like a cross between Kevin Pietersen and Alastair Cook!

Although I've already voted for Johnson, there's a fantastic story about Zatopek's 1952 Olympic marathon victory.
Having already won the 5 and 10000m, Zatopek decided to have a go at the marathon, having never run one before. After about 12 miles he was running alongside the British champion, and race favourite, Jim Peters, and asked Peters whether they were running a good pace. Peters, who thought they were going too quickly, mischeviously told Zatopek that they were running too slowly. So Zatopek just accelerated, leaving an astonished Peters in his wake and broke the Olympic record. Peters didn't finish.

One thing Lara didn't do, was lead the Windies to the 96 world cup final.

Tough group but Johnson for me, superb athlete. Breathtaking times that he ran and as Chris says the 200 and 400 double is unprecedented, that said Im not sure its anymore impressive than Alberto Juantorena running the 400 and 800 double in Montreal but thats splitting hairs.
Its picking a number two for me, lots of people going for Lara but Im not convinced I would even pick him in my all time test side, Id probably have Viv Richards in just ahead of him.
Fangio was the best ever at what he did from what Ive read and in what Zatopek did in also mind blowing, though the it was decades ago so does it really count argument comes into play.
Probably Fangio at 2 for me, you can say what you like at being a pilot but it didnt matter as much back in the day and his record is just brilliant, apparently a complete gent as well.

Hoggy_Bear wrote:Although I've already voted for Johnson, there's a fantastic story about Zatopek's 1952 Olympic marathon victory.
Having already won the 5 and 10000m, Zatopek decided to have a go at the marathon, having never run one before. After about 12 miles he was running alongside the British champion, and race favourite, Jim Peters, and asked Peters whether they were running a good pace. Peters, who thought they were going too quickly, mischeviously told Zatopek that they were running too slowly. So Zatopek just accelerated, leaving an astonished Peters in his wake and broke the Olympic record. Peters didn't finish.

A good piece on Zatopek below, I did offer to wirte up anything not taken on track and field yesterday, hey ho -

Emil Zatopek wins the marathon at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, making it a golden treble. Photograph: EPA


In 1952 Jim Peters, the British marathon champion, world record-holder and pre-race favourite, was on the track at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, warming up for perhaps the most important race of his life, when he was approached by a wiry, balding man whom he had never previously met. The man thrust out a hand. "Hello," he said. "I am Zatopek."

Peters knew exactly who he was. Emil Zatopek was one of the great names in distance running, having won a gold, a silver and a wife in London four years earlier and a 5,000m and 10,000m double already in Helsinki. He was also the man responsible for Peters's decision to specialise in the marathon, having in the last Olympics so emphatically humiliated the Briton over 10,000m that he never ran the distance again. But the Czech had never run a marathon in his life and was considered a rank outsider, while Peters had shattered the world record just weeks earlier. Not in the mood for idle chatter, Peters returned the handshake but did not extend the conversation.

An hour or so later, Zatopek approached him again. This time Peters was halfway through the race and in the lead, when the Czech appeared on his shoulder. "Jim," said Zatopek, "is this pace too fast?" "No," Peters replied. "It isn't fast enough." The Englishman later explained that he was actually perfectly happy, and had "said it was too slow just to kid him" – but Zatopek took him at his word and started to run faster. Soon he disappeared from view, and the next time Peters saw him he was two minutes ahead of anyone else and the Briton had succumbed to cramp and was hitching a ride in a bus full of journalists. When Zatopek crossed the line, looking as the Guardian reported "like a man who has had a brisk country walk", the crowd chanted his name and he was carried around the stadium upon the shoulders of Jamaica's victorious 4x400m relay team, having secured a long-distance treble that no one before or since has even come close to and with it an indelible place in sporting legend.

As Peters had discovered, Zatopek was an excellent conversationalist. One British athlete complained that he "never shut up". He spoke six languages, and made more friends actually during races than most athletes did when socialising. He entertained himself for much of the second half of that 1952 marathon by chatting with a car full of photographers, and afterwards declared that "the marathon is a very boring race".

Had the intelligence with which he planned and executed his races and accumulated foreign languages been more evident at school, Zatopek's life – and the history of distance running – might have been very different. His ambition to become a teacher was thwarted by his own academic failings, and instead he considered himself fortunate to get an apprenticeship at the Bata shoe factory in Zlin, which also allowed him to continue his education in night classes. It was 1936, and he was 14.

Every year on the second Sunday in May, a race was held through the streets of Zlin, which Zatopek studiously avoided. "After all there were boys from all over the republic there, and some of them were very talented," he said. "It was no place for me." But when he was 18 his tutor ordered him to take part. Zatopek claimed he was ill but the tutor called his bluff and sent him to a doctor. Given a clean bill of health, he had little choice but to line up for the event. "I was angry," he later recalled. "At this age you feel you are an adult and shouldn't be compelled to do such things. But I had to and I thought: 'Right, I'll show him.'"

Zatopek came second and was invited to join the local athletic club, where he developed his own training regime that combined sprints and longer runs, based loosely on what he had read about the great Finn Paavo Nurmi. "Running is easily understandable: you must be fast enough and you must have enough endurance," he said. "So you run fast for speed and repeat it many times for endurance."

At the end of the war he joined the Czech army, who gradually gave him the freedom to spend more time training. By 1948 an average day included five 200m sprints, 20 400m runs, then five more 200m sprints. When this was successful he pushed himself harder – he did 50 400m runs, then 60, then 70. He discovered that the harder he worked in training the faster he ran on the track, so in the buildup to one record attempt he pushed himself to 100 400m runs a day – 50 in the morning, and another 50 in the afternoon, adding up to nearly 25 miles a day, with a couple of miles of sprints thrown in for good measure. "It is at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys," he said.

In 1946 he competed in his first international race, an inter-Allied meet in Berlin. Stuck in Prague with no obvious way to get there he eventually decided to cycle, a 220-mile journey, and still won when he got there. "I started too fast," he later recalled, "and the big crowd, maybe there is 60,000, they started to laugh. They thought I am crazy. Who is he, they are saying? He is crazy. Crazy. But I won this event, and it was a great inspiration for me."

Encouraged, he redoubled his efforts over the following winter. He would run at night, carrying a torch. He would strap weights to his feet and then go cycling. He would make a cut-price treadmill by putting a layer of wet clothes at the bottom of his bath and running on them, one part athlete, one part washing machine. He ran in heavy army boots and embraced rain, ice and snow. "There is a great advantage in training under unfavourable conditions," he said. "It is better to train under bad conditions, for the difference is then a tremendous relief in a race."

His target became 5,000m gold at the 1948 Olympics in London. On 29 May, two months and one day before the Olympic final, Zatopek ran for the first time over 10,000m and found he was quite good at that as well. By the time he reached London his personal best was only 1.6sec outside the world record, and he had decided to compete over both distances.

As was traditional, the 10,000m was held on the first day of the Games. Zatopek's aim was to run each lap in 71sec, world record pace. His coach sat in the stands with a stopwatch; if his charge was on target he would hold a white shirt, if he fell behind, he would raise a red one. On the eighth lap for the first time Zatopek saw red, and sped up. But for a short battle with Finland's Viljo Heino, nobody came close to him again and his margin of victory was 48 seconds. The Guardian described it as "one of the greatest races of a lifetime", adding: "What made this race even more extraordinary was the fact that Zatopek was easily the ugliest runner in it."

Zatopek's awkward running style was to become legendary, being compared unfavourably even with that of the Scotsman Eric Liddell, who had won gold in Paris in 1924. The New York Herald Tribune described him "bobbing, weaving, staggering, gyrating, clutching his torso ... he ran like a man with a noose around his neck. He seemed on the verge of strangulation." The New York Times felt his action was that of "a harried soul on the rack of physical and spiritual torture". Another journalist suggested he looked "like a man wrestling with an octopus on a conveyor belt". "Track and field is not ice skating," Zatopek said. "It is not necessary to smile and make a wonderful impression on the judges."

The 5,000m a few days later was uglier still. Having indulged in a totally unnecessary sprint finish with Sweden's Eric Ahlden in his heat, Zatopek was perhaps weary even before it began. Run in pouring rain on a dirt track that had long since turned to mud, Zatopek's famous endurance seemed to desert him. He all but dropped out of contention entirely, falling at one stage 100m behind the leader, Belgium's Gaston Reiff. But then, over the final lap, Zatopek fought back, the crowd roaring him on. Gasping and flailing he closed the gap to 30m, then 20m, then 10. In the closing straight Reiff could hear his rival's footsteps and feel his breath. Zatopek finished one pace and 0.2 seconds from gold. "It was," we wrote, "a performance that would have made him one of the immortals of the track on its own."

Also on the Czech team in London was the javelin thrower Dana Ingrova, who finished seventh. She happened to be precisely Zatopek's age, both having been born on 19 September 1922. They knew each other already but the relationship blossomed in London, where they passed time playing a long-distance, high-stakes game of catch using her javelin. He bought two gold rings from a shop in Piccadilly Circus. "So, we were both born on the same day," he told her. "What if, by chance, we were also to get married on the same day?"

They wed two months later. "I was surprised when I first saw how Topek lived for it, what he was ready to sacrifice," his bride said, many years later. "But when I saw his successes, I realised: 'Yes, that's it."' The next four years were a story of almost unblemished success for both of them. Between 1949 and 1951 Zatopek competed in 69 long-distance races and won every one. But in 1951 he injured himself by skiing into a tree, and in the buildup to the 1952 Olympics he suffered from illness. Then, on the night before the 10,000m final, an Australian journalist barged into his bedroom at midnight and requested an interview. Zatopek spoke to him for 20 minutes, and then after discovering that the reporter had no hotel of his own, invited him to stay the night.

Still, he won the race easily enough and followed it this time with victory in the 5,000m – certainly the most dramatic of his Olympic victories, involving a stunning last-bend manoeuvre that took him past Chris Chataway, Alain Mimoun and Herbert Schade. Ten minutes after that race, Dana won gold in the javelin.

By then he was 30, and a new generation of athletes were coming through, and in the 1954 European Championships he was thrashed over 5,000m by a Russian named Vladimir Kuts. If that defeat hurt immediately, its full impact struck him only the following year, when a coaches' conference was held in Prague and the Russians revealed that Kuts was running faster than Zatopek ever had, and with half as much training. "Oh, they were hard words for me," the Czech recalled. "I couldn't sleep without thinking why, why. I talked to Kuts. His training is developing in the opposite direction to mine. He runs only 20 times 400m but each year he runs faster. He develops quality instead of quantity."

The truth was that Zatopek worked too hard for his own good, and he continued to do so. In the buildup to the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 he started doing cross-country runs with his wife on his back, developed a hernia, needed an operation and very nearly missed the Games altogether. He recovered to finish sixth in the marathon, but soon after announced his retirement.

He remained active in the sport, partly because his apartment in Prague became an open house for the world's best athletes, who would never miss the opportunity when in (what was) Czechoslovakia to visit the gregarious former Olympian. Gordon Pirie, the Yorkshireman who had modelled himself on Zatopek and raced against him in 1952, described it as "the merriest and gayest home I've been in".

In 1968 the Australian athlete Ron Clarke came to visit. One of the world's fastest distance runners for a decade, Clarke had suffered from a string of bad luck at major championships, and in that year's Olympics in Mexico City had collapsed and very nearly died from altitude sickness. For all his lack of success Zatopek respected him as an athlete and liked him as a person, and the two spent a pleasurable day together. When he dropped Clarke off at the airport, Zatopek embraced him warmly and handed him a small parcel. "Not out of friendship but because you deserve it," he said.

Clarke kept the package in his pocket until his plane was in the air. "I wondered whether I was smuggling something out for him. I retired to the privacy of the lavatory. When I unwrapped the box, there, inscribed with my name and that day's date, was Emil's Olympic 10,000-metre gold medal. I sat on that toilet seat and wept," Clarke said.

A couple of months before Clarke's visit, Soviet forces had brought a bloody end to the Prague Spring, a period when Czechoslovakia had flirted with democracy and westernisation, with Zatopek a vocal supporter. The following year Zatopek was punished for his political infidelity. Over years of loyal service, he had risen through the army ranks to become a colonel. Suddenly he was stripped of his rank, expelled from the army and thrown out of the Communist Party, who declared that Zatopek "lacked understanding of the fundamental problems of the development of our socialist society, and the need to defend it on the basis of the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism". He was put to work in Prague's sanitation department, collecting rubbish, and went on to spend seven years working in a uranium mine. Typically he saw the bright side of that experience as well. "The earth is nice not only from above, but from inside," he said.

Eventually he returned to Prague and to his wife, with whom he lived in modest contentment until his death in 2000, aged 78. Nearly half a century after his greatest sporting achievement, leading figures from the world of sport filled his funeral at Prague's National Theatre, testament to his eminence not just as an athlete but as a human. Certainly those who knew him best were sure that Zatopek's greatness had not been confined to the track. As Ron Clarke, who of course had a unique reason to remember him fondly, put it: "There is not, and never was, a greater man than Emil Zatopek."

Stella wrote:One thing Lara didn't do, was lead the Windies to the 96 world cup final.

Sorry, my bad. I was a bit short on time when I wrote that bit about ODIs as originally I only wrote about Tests. You are right, they got to the semi-final.

A quick summary for Zatopek

The Czechoslovakian long distance runner was born in 1922, but only really took up running seriously at the end of WW2 - being employed by the Czech army probably allowed more time for training than if he'd had a conventional job, which was something Zatopek's training regime needed as he ran prodigious distances.

His breakthrough came in the London Olympics of 1948, taking a silver in the 5000m (his primary event to that time) and then the fold in the 10000m, in only his second race over that distance. European titles followed at both distances in 1950 (retaining the 10000m title in 54).

However, Zatopek's defining achievement was in the 1952 Olympics. He first won the 5000m then defended his 10000m title, breaking the Olympic record in both. He then decided to enter the marathon, an event he had never competed in previously - he won this as well, setting a new Olympic record in the process.

Definitely a worthy contender, but his dominant period was too short for me to consider him the GOAT - not sure his record even compares favourably as the best ever longer distance runner when compared with Gebresilassie or Bekele.

Even as a cricket fan, and a huge fan of Lara, I can't justify a vote for him either - great style and talent, and someone you could quite happily watch all day, but ultimately perhaps achieved too little (a bit like Ronnie O'Sullivan as discussed earlier - great on his day but inclined to the inconsistent).

So I'm down to Fangio and Johnson - the man widely regarded as the best racing driver ever and the guy who redefined the boundaries in 200 and 400m running a decade or so ago.

My problem with Fangio is how he would rate against more modern drivers - for example Schumacher's career stats in terms of wins and titles put him on a different plane.

I think therefore I have to go with Michael Johnson. Indeed, I think the measure of Bolt's greatness is that he managed to shave a couple of hundredths off MJs 200m world record - unlike the 100m record, Bolt wasn't cruising at the end but was 'eyeballs out' all the way to the line.

Cheers for that Diggers. That's how sportspeople should be. Fascinating stuff.

super_realist wrote:

Azzy Mahmood wrote:I went with Lara. He scored 501, 375, 400, and many, many great innings on top of those. He carried that West Indies team through the post-Ambrose/Walsh period, and everyone feared him. I got his autograph once, he'd just gotten out for 99, but stopped and signed stuff for all the kids waiting for him. A true legend.

Johnson would be my second choice, although I don't like the man as an individual. He achieved a helluva lot.

Interesting Azzy, he seems a perfect gentleman on TV and is a great commentator/pundit.
What is it you don't like?

I don't like showmen like Bolt, Johnson, David Haye etc. It's not how you compete, it's the way you conduct yourself, and I hate all the flashy 'look at how great I am' sportsmen/women. Tom Daley is another, what a twerp.

And now he's a pundit, Johnson has to be the most boring person on the planet. He ruins athletics with his constant droning, people fawn over him, it's embarrassing to watch. Quite why British TV needs to borrow an American athlete for its coverage rather than use its own stars, I'll never know.

Diggers wrote:A good piece on Zatopek below, I did offer to wirte up anything not taken on track and field yesterday, hey ho -

Emil Zatopek wins the marathon at the 1952 Olympic Games in Helsinki, making it a golden treble. Photograph: EPA


In 1952 Jim Peters, the British marathon champion, world record-holder and pre-race favourite, was on the track at the Olympic Stadium in Helsinki, warming up for perhaps the most important race of his life, when he was approached by a wiry, balding man whom he had never previously met. The man thrust out a hand. "Hello," he said. "I am Zatopek."

Peters knew exactly who he was. Emil Zatopek was one of the great names in distance running, having won a gold, a silver and a wife in London four years earlier and a 5,000m and 10,000m double already in Helsinki. He was also the man responsible for Peters's decision to specialise in the marathon, having in the last Olympics so emphatically humiliated the Briton over 10,000m that he never ran the distance again. But the Czech had never run a marathon in his life and was considered a rank outsider, while Peters had shattered the world record just weeks earlier. Not in the mood for idle chatter, Peters returned the handshake but did not extend the conversation.

An hour or so later, Zatopek approached him again. This time Peters was halfway through the race and in the lead, when the Czech appeared on his shoulder. "Jim," said Zatopek, "is this pace too fast?" "No," Peters replied. "It isn't fast enough." The Englishman later explained that he was actually perfectly happy, and had "said it was too slow just to kid him" – but Zatopek took him at his word and started to run faster. Soon he disappeared from view, and the next time Peters saw him he was two minutes ahead of anyone else and the Briton had succumbed to cramp and was hitching a ride in a bus full of journalists. When Zatopek crossed the line, looking as the Guardian reported "like a man who has had a brisk country walk", the crowd chanted his name and he was carried around the stadium upon the shoulders of Jamaica's victorious 4x400m relay team, having secured a long-distance treble that no one before or since has even come close to and with it an indelible place in sporting legend.

As Peters had discovered, Zatopek was an excellent conversationalist. One British athlete complained that he "never shut up". He spoke six languages, and made more friends actually during races than most athletes did when socialising. He entertained himself for much of the second half of that 1952 marathon by chatting with a car full of photographers, and afterwards declared that "the marathon is a very boring race".

Had the intelligence with which he planned and executed his races and accumulated foreign languages been more evident at school, Zatopek's life – and the history of distance running – might have been very different. His ambition to become a teacher was thwarted by his own academic failings, and instead he considered himself fortunate to get an apprenticeship at the Bata shoe factory in Zlin, which also allowed him to continue his education in night classes. It was 1936, and he was 14.

Every year on the second Sunday in May, a race was held through the streets of Zlin, which Zatopek studiously avoided. "After all there were boys from all over the republic there, and some of them were very talented," he said. "It was no place for me." But when he was 18 his tutor ordered him to take part. Zatopek claimed he was ill but the tutor called his bluff and sent him to a doctor. Given a clean bill of health, he had little choice but to line up for the event. "I was angry," he later recalled. "At this age you feel you are an adult and shouldn't be compelled to do such things. But I had to and I thought: 'Right, I'll show him.'"

Zatopek came second and was invited to join the local athletic club, where he developed his own training regime that combined sprints and longer runs, based loosely on what he had read about the great Finn Paavo Nurmi. "Running is easily understandable: you must be fast enough and you must have enough endurance," he said. "So you run fast for speed and repeat it many times for endurance."

At the end of the war he joined the Czech army, who gradually gave him the freedom to spend more time training. By 1948 an average day included five 200m sprints, 20 400m runs, then five more 200m sprints. When this was successful he pushed himself harder – he did 50 400m runs, then 60, then 70. He discovered that the harder he worked in training the faster he ran on the track, so in the buildup to one record attempt he pushed himself to 100 400m runs a day – 50 in the morning, and another 50 in the afternoon, adding up to nearly 25 miles a day, with a couple of miles of sprints thrown in for good measure. "It is at the borders of pain and suffering that the men are separated from the boys," he said.

In 1946 he competed in his first international race, an inter-Allied meet in Berlin. Stuck in Prague with no obvious way to get there he eventually decided to cycle, a 220-mile journey, and still won when he got there. "I started too fast," he later recalled, "and the big crowd, maybe there is 60,000, they started to laugh. They thought I am crazy. Who is he, they are saying? He is crazy. Crazy. But I won this event, and it was a great inspiration for me."

Encouraged, he redoubled his efforts over the following winter. He would run at night, carrying a torch. He would strap weights to his feet and then go cycling. He would make a cut-price treadmill by putting a layer of wet clothes at the bottom of his bath and running on them, one part athlete, one part washing machine. He ran in heavy army boots and embraced rain, ice and snow. "There is a great advantage in training under unfavourable conditions," he said. "It is better to train under bad conditions, for the difference is then a tremendous relief in a race."

His target became 5,000m gold at the 1948 Olympics in London. On 29 May, two months and one day before the Olympic final, Zatopek ran for the first time over 10,000m and found he was quite good at that as well. By the time he reached London his personal best was only 1.6sec outside the world record, and he had decided to compete over both distances.

As was traditional, the 10,000m was held on the first day of the Games. Zatopek's aim was to run each lap in 71sec, world record pace. His coach sat in the stands with a stopwatch; if his charge was on target he would hold a white shirt, if he fell behind, he would raise a red one. On the eighth lap for the first time Zatopek saw red, and sped up. But for a short battle with Finland's Viljo Heino, nobody came close to him again and his margin of victory was 48 seconds. The Guardian described it as "one of the greatest races of a lifetime", adding: "What made this race even more extraordinary was the fact that Zatopek was easily the ugliest runner in it."

Zatopek's awkward running style was to become legendary, being compared unfavourably even with that of the Scotsman Eric Liddell, who had won gold in Paris in 1924. The New York Herald Tribune described him "bobbing, weaving, staggering, gyrating, clutching his torso ... he ran like a man with a noose around his neck. He seemed on the verge of strangulation." The New York Times felt his action was that of "a harried soul on the rack of physical and spiritual torture". Another journalist suggested he looked "like a man wrestling with an octopus on a conveyor belt". "Track and field is not ice skating," Zatopek said. "It is not necessary to smile and make a wonderful impression on the judges."

The 5,000m a few days later was uglier still. Having indulged in a totally unnecessary sprint finish with Sweden's Eric Ahlden in his heat, Zatopek was perhaps weary even before it began. Run in pouring rain on a dirt track that had long since turned to mud, Zatopek's famous endurance seemed to desert him. He all but dropped out of contention entirely, falling at one stage 100m behind the leader, Belgium's Gaston Reiff. But then, over the final lap, Zatopek fought back, the crowd roaring him on. Gasping and flailing he closed the gap to 30m, then 20m, then 10. In the closing straight Reiff could hear his rival's footsteps and feel his breath. Zatopek finished one pace and 0.2 seconds from gold. "It was," we wrote, "a performance that would have made him one of the immortals of the track on its own."

Also on the Czech team in London was the javelin thrower Dana Ingrova, who finished seventh. She happened to be precisely Zatopek's age, both having been born on 19 September 1922. They knew each other already but the relationship blossomed in London, where they passed time playing a long-distance, high-stakes game of catch using her javelin. He bought two gold rings from a shop in Piccadilly Circus. "So, we were both born on the same day," he told her. "What if, by chance, we were also to get married on the same day?"

They wed two months later. "I was surprised when I first saw how Topek lived for it, what he was ready to sacrifice," his bride said, many years later. "But when I saw his successes, I realised: 'Yes, that's it."' The next four years were a story of almost unblemished success for both of them. Between 1949 and 1951 Zatopek competed in 69 long-distance races and won every one. But in 1951 he injured himself by skiing into a tree, and in the buildup to the 1952 Olympics he suffered from illness. Then, on the night before the 10,000m final, an Australian journalist barged into his bedroom at midnight and requested an interview. Zatopek spoke to him for 20 minutes, and then after discovering that the reporter had no hotel of his own, invited him to stay the night.

Still, he won the race easily enough and followed it this time with victory in the 5,000m – certainly the most dramatic of his Olympic victories, involving a stunning last-bend manoeuvre that took him past Chris Chataway, Alain Mimoun and Herbert Schade. Ten minutes after that race, Dana won gold in the javelin.

By then he was 30, and a new generation of athletes were coming through, and in the 1954 European Championships he was thrashed over 5,000m by a Russian named Vladimir Kuts. If that defeat hurt immediately, its full impact struck him only the following year, when a coaches' conference was held in Prague and the Russians revealed that Kuts was running faster than Zatopek ever had, and with half as much training. "Oh, they were hard words for me," the Czech recalled. "I couldn't sleep without thinking why, why. I talked to Kuts. His training is developing in the opposite direction to mine. He runs only 20 times 400m but each year he runs faster. He develops quality instead of quantity."

The truth was that Zatopek worked too hard for his own good, and he continued to do so. In the buildup to the Melbourne Olympics in 1956 he started doing cross-country runs with his wife on his back, developed a hernia, needed an operation and very nearly missed the Games altogether. He recovered to finish sixth in the marathon, but soon after announced his retirement.

He remained active in the sport, partly because his apartment in Prague became an open house for the world's best athletes, who would never miss the opportunity when in (what was) Czechoslovakia to visit the gregarious former Olympian. Gordon Pirie, the Yorkshireman who had modelled himself on Zatopek and raced against him in 1952, described it as "the merriest and gayest home I've been in".

In 1968 the Australian athlete Ron Clarke came to visit. One of the world's fastest distance runners for a decade, Clarke had suffered from a string of bad luck at major championships, and in that year's Olympics in Mexico City had collapsed and very nearly died from altitude sickness. For all his lack of success Zatopek respected him as an athlete and liked him as a person, and the two spent a pleasurable day together. When he dropped Clarke off at the airport, Zatopek embraced him warmly and handed him a small parcel. "Not out of friendship but because you deserve it," he said.

Clarke kept the package in his pocket until his plane was in the air. "I wondered whether I was smuggling something out for him. I retired to the privacy of the lavatory. When I unwrapped the box, there, inscribed with my name and that day's date, was Emil's Olympic 10,000-metre gold medal. I sat on that toilet seat and wept," Clarke said.

A couple of months before Clarke's visit, Soviet forces had brought a bloody end to the Prague Spring, a period when Czechoslovakia had flirted with democracy and westernisation, with Zatopek a vocal supporter. The following year Zatopek was punished for his political infidelity. Over years of loyal service, he had risen through the army ranks to become a colonel. Suddenly he was stripped of his rank, expelled from the army and thrown out of the Communist Party, who declared that Zatopek "lacked understanding of the fundamental problems of the development of our socialist society, and the need to defend it on the basis of the principles of Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism". He was put to work in Prague's sanitation department, collecting rubbish, and went on to spend seven years working in a uranium mine. Typically he saw the bright side of that experience as well. "The earth is nice not only from above, but from inside," he said.

Eventually he returned to Prague and to his wife, with whom he lived in modest contentment until his death in 2000, aged 78. Nearly half a century after his greatest sporting achievement, leading figures from the world of sport filled his funeral at Prague's National Theatre, testament to his eminence not just as an athlete but as a human. Certainly those who knew him best were sure that Zatopek's greatness had not been confined to the track. As Ron Clarke, who of course had a unique reason to remember him fondly, put it: "There is not, and never was, a greater man than Emil Zatopek."

Brilliant stuff.
Almost makes me want to change my vote.

Azzy Mahmood wrote:

super_realist wrote:

Azzy Mahmood wrote:I went with Lara. He scored 501, 375, 400, and many, many great innings on top of those. He carried that West Indies team through the post-Ambrose/Walsh period, and everyone feared him. I got his autograph once, he'd just gotten out for 99, but stopped and signed stuff for all the kids waiting for him. A true legend.

Johnson would be my second choice, although I don't like the man as an individual. He achieved a helluva lot.

Interesting Azzy, he seems a perfect gentleman on TV and is a great commentator/pundit.
What is it you don't like?

I don't like showmen like Bolt, Johnson, David Haye etc. It's not how you compete, it's the way you conduct yourself, and I hate all the flashy 'look at how great I am' sportsmen/women. Tom Daley is another, what a twerp.

And now he's a pundit, Johnson has to be the most boring person on the planet. He ruins athletics with his constant droning, people fawn over him, it's embarrassing to watch. Quite why British TV needs to borrow an American athlete for its coverage rather than use its own stars, I'll never know.

Yeah he constantly drones intelligent facts and worthwhile information. He is like a beacon of light next to the likes of Colin Jackson. The only flashy thing about Johnson on the track was his shoes, to compare him to Bolts ego, sorry just dont remotely see that.

Loving these threads fella, haven't got into the debates so far as been busy this week at work, but fascinating reading about some of these peoples acheivements.

Azzy Mahmood wrote:

super_realist wrote:

Azzy Mahmood wrote:I went with Lara. He scored 501, 375, 400, and many, many great innings on top of those. He carried that West Indies team through the post-Ambrose/Walsh period, and everyone feared him. I got his autograph once, he'd just gotten out for 99, but stopped and signed stuff for all the kids waiting for him. A true legend.

Johnson would be my second choice, although I don't like the man as an individual. He achieved a helluva lot.

Interesting Azzy, he seems a perfect gentleman on TV and is a great commentator/pundit.
What is it you don't like?

I don't like showmen like Bolt, Johnson, David Haye etc. It's not how you compete, it's the way you conduct yourself, and I hate all the flashy 'look at how great I am' sportsmen/women. Tom Daley is another, what a twerp.

And now he's a pundit, Johnson has to be the most boring person on the planet. He ruins athletics with his constant droning, people fawn over him, it's embarrassing to watch. Quite why British TV needs to borrow an American athlete for its coverage rather than use its own stars, I'll never know.

Fair enough Azzy. I've always found him quite good on television though. Certainly the best of the athletic pundits. Intelligent, articulate and less excitable than the ghastly Colin Jackson and Denise Lewis.

Actually cannot stand Tom Daley either. He seems to have used diving as a "springboard" (see what I did there) for a media career.

Azzy Mahmood wrote:

super_realist wrote:

Azzy Mahmood wrote:I went with Lara. He scored 501, 375, 400, and many, many great innings on top of those. He carried that West Indies team through the post-Ambrose/Walsh period, and everyone feared him. I got his autograph once, he'd just gotten out for 99, but stopped and signed stuff for all the kids waiting for him. A true legend.

Johnson would be my second choice, although I don't like the man as an individual. He achieved a helluva lot.

Interesting Azzy, he seems a perfect gentleman on TV and is a great commentator/pundit.
What is it you don't like?

I don't like showmen like Bolt, Johnson, David Haye etc. It's not how you compete, it's the way you conduct yourself, and I hate all the flashy 'look at how great I am' sportsmen/women. Tom Daley is another, what a twerp.

And now he's a pundit, Johnson has to be the most boring person on the planet. He ruins athletics with his constant droning, people fawn over him, it's embarrassing to watch. Quite why British TV needs to borrow an American athlete for its coverage rather than use its own stars, I'll never know.

It's not Johnson's fault that Jackson and Lewis look at him like some sort of hero. IMO Johnson is a great pundit. Know's his stuff and above all, is honest.

It has to be Michael Johnson for me. I remember it was headline news and raised eyebrows if Johnson was ever beaten he was that good. In my mind the greatest 400 metres athlete of all-time.

I don't want to make this thread into anti-Johnson, so I'll stop here.

Great story about Zatopek, that is legendary! And quite inspirational to a guy about to run his 5th marathon in April.

BC Lara for me. Second only to Don Bradman as the greatest batsman of the lot - in my view (very tough choice between he and Tendulkar), and he played sport in the way it should be play - he entertained! At his peak, nobody could bowl to Lara without there being a severe danger of it disappearing in to the stands.

The only man to score 400 in Test cricket.
The only man to score 500 in any form of cricket (for Warwickshire).

Significant records, and likely ones that will never be broken.

Re the flashy, arrogant sportsman (just making a point Azzy, not trying to start an argument ) a lot of the very best guys seem to have it. Id argue that out in the middle Lara was as flashy and arrogant as pretty much anyone, partly because he made the game look so easy and was often grinning away. But he also played shots that could be called arrogant or maybe dismissive of the guys he was facing.
I dont know much about Lara off the pitch but as far as I have gathered he was a reasonably quiet guy, so I guess the way he expressed himself was on thd pitch ?
I think Johnson had a game face on the track, it said Im the man and you can have a go but you are going down. Bolt is probably the one who goes way over the top for me, far too much styling going on but wow, what a lot of substance to back it up.

I read that Lara wasn't the best team man at Warwickshire but hey he scored many many runs.

Interesting.

Having voted against a cricketer the other day, I'm torn between whether to do so again or not.

If, for the sake of this post we temporarily discount Zatopek and Fangio (for whom I think its more difficult to make a case), we have to compare Johnson and Lara.

Both set records which have proved extremely difficult to break (or haven't yet been broken).

Both did a lot for the image of their sport.

Sure, Johnson won more trophies but that's the difference between individual and team sport.

So, a difficult one. Will look more closely later.

Diggers wrote:Re the flashy, arrogant sportsman (just making a point Azzy, not trying to start an argument ) a lot of the very best guys seem to have it. Id argue that out in the middle Lara was as flashy and arrogant as pretty much anyone, partly because he made the game look so easy and was often grinning away. But he also played shots that could be called arrogant or maybe dismissive of the guys he was facing.
I dont know much about Lara off the pitch but as far as I have gathered he was a reasonably quiet guy, so I guess the way he expressed himself was on thd pitch ?
I think Johnson had a game face on the track, it said Im the man and you can have a go but you are going down. Bolt is probably the one who goes way over the top for me, far too much styling going on but wow, what a lot of substance to back it up.

Certain sports seem to have arrogance displayed more than others, I'm thinking sprint distances, 100m, 200m plus boxing, football etc.
I can see why they do it, I'm not fond of it though. Can you imagine a marathon runner strutting round like that? Ha ha.

Blake is the worst for me though. All that showboat stuff is pretty embarassing though much like an X-Factor pratt mimicking a phone gesture or Nadal biting a trophy. Horrid.

Pre-meditated showboating is almost certainly the most cringeworthy things to witness in sport.

One of the funniest things I have ever seen is a few years ago when a couple of Ipswich players did a dance by the side of the pitch thinking they had scored. But no goal had been given and whilst these prats were dancing the opposition went up the other end and almost (or maybe did - can't remember) scored themselves. Classic!

super_realist wrote:

Diggers wrote:Re the flashy, arrogant sportsman (just making a point Azzy, not trying to start an argument ) a lot of the very best guys seem to have it. Id argue that out in the middle Lara was as flashy and arrogant as pretty much anyone, partly because he made the game look so easy and was often grinning away. But he also played shots that could be called arrogant or maybe dismissive of the guys he was facing.
I dont know much about Lara off the pitch but as far as I have gathered he was a reasonably quiet guy, so I guess the way he expressed himself was on thd pitch ?
I think Johnson had a game face on the track, it said Im the man and you can have a go but you are going down. Bolt is probably the one who goes way over the top for me, far too much styling going on but wow, what a lot of substance to back it up.

Certain sports seem to have arrogance displayed more than others, I'm thinking sprint distances, 100m, 200m plus boxing, football etc.
I can see why they do it, I'm not fond of it though. Can you imagine a marathon runner strutting round like that? Ha ha.

Blake is the worst for me though. All that showboat stuff is pretty embarassing though much like an X-Factor pratt mimicking a phone gesture or Nadal biting a trophy. Horrid.

I used to like the mind games at the start of the 100 back in the day. Christies tunnel vision, Mo Green prowling around like a caged tiger, Lewis looking serene. I agree now all the posturing has gone way too far though.

Diggers wrote:

super_realist wrote:

Diggers wrote:Re the flashy, arrogant sportsman (just making a point Azzy, not trying to start an argument ) a lot of the very best guys seem to have it. Id argue that out in the middle Lara was as flashy and arrogant as pretty much anyone, partly because he made the game look so easy and was often grinning away. But he also played shots that could be called arrogant or maybe dismissive of the guys he was facing.
I dont know much about Lara off the pitch but as far as I have gathered he was a reasonably quiet guy, so I guess the way he expressed himself was on thd pitch ?
I think Johnson had a game face on the track, it said Im the man and you can have a go but you are going down. Bolt is probably the one who goes way over the top for me, far too much styling going on but wow, what a lot of substance to back it up.

Certain sports seem to have arrogance displayed more than others, I'm thinking sprint distances, 100m, 200m plus boxing, football etc.
I can see why they do it, I'm not fond of it though. Can you imagine a marathon runner strutting round like that? Ha ha.

Blake is the worst for me though. All that showboat stuff is pretty embarassing though much like an X-Factor pratt mimicking a phone gesture or Nadal biting a trophy. Horrid.

I used to like the mind games at the start of the 100 back in the day. Christies tunnel vision, Mo Green prowling around like a caged tiger, Lewis looking serene. I agree now all the posturing has gone way too far though.

Yeah, it was part of the game and got the butterflies going.

Diggers wrote:Re the flashy, arrogant sportsman (just making a point Azzy, not trying to start an argument ) a lot of the very best guys seem to have it. Id argue that out in the middle Lara was as flashy and arrogant as pretty much anyone, partly because he made the game look so easy and was often grinning away. But he also played shots that could be called arrogant or maybe dismissive of the guys he was facing.
I dont know much about Lara off the pitch but as far as I have gathered he was a reasonably quiet guy, so I guess the way he expressed himself was on thd pitch ?
I think Johnson had a game face on the track, it said Im the man and you can have a go but you are going down. Bolt is probably the one who goes way over the top for me, far too much styling going on but wow, what a lot of substance to back it up.

It's that line between confidence and arrogance. I think Johnson was mostly on the right side of it (other than the flashy shoes, but they were probably the idea of Nike anyway) - he was good, he knew he was and everyone else knew he was; he just had that aura about him. As you say, Bolt does take it too far at times, but at least has the results to back it up - the other 100m runners just look a bit like twits doing the same stuff and then trailing in 4th.

As for Lara and arrogance, I think a really great batsman needs a little bit of that at least when out in the middle. It tells the bowler that they aren't good enough to get me out. Lara had it at the crease, but Viv Richards took it to a whole different level - striding in and giving the bowler the eye, basically saying 'show me what you've got - it's not going to be enough'.

quite an easy one for me this time around..

Michael Jhonson- One of my fav stars as a kid... He was just great for the sport and a legend of it as well... Cant say enough good things about him..


B lara had alot of class and i am hoping he picks up second spot..

Also love racing and fangio was considered a great. He raced in a time where this sport was scary and he beat everyone up.. But i just cant vote for a racing driver to become the GOAT of all time- not because i devalue the profession(it surely is the coolest profession out there!!) But because they are to hard to quantify... Is that fair. Probally not

Who is the other guy?

"
Who is the other guy?"


oh i see diggs has posted an essay.. Back in 5 hours then!!

If not the greatest of all sports figures, then Zatopek is definitely the most underrated, if today's voting figures are anything to go by!

I take it we'll be taking a break over the weekend when traffic is slow?

Yep, Group 6 will be posted Monday morning.

Very tight between Johnson and Lara, in the end I voted for Johnson.

88Chris05 wrote:If not the greatest of all sports figures, then Zatopek is definitely the most underrated, if today's voting figures are anything to go by!

A bit like Bobby Jones yesterday and Harry Greb the day before, someone who for all their excellence does not really have the 'legend' status that keeps their name in the public consciousness. It's not necessarily just an age thing, as Bradman and Babe Ruth (who I presume will appear somewhere in the 64) are still very strongly remembered even though they were from pre WW2.

With Zatopek, I wonder if in part it's because he lived behind the Iron Curtain and so had no 'media profile' in the west after finishing competing?

Doesn't help there isn't much of an athletics board presence on here. Obviously everyone knows the likes of Johnson but you have to be a bit of a buff to know much about the likes of Zatopek. I'm sure he'd be right up there in a Czech Republic poll.

Pretty quiet on here today. Maybe less people about on Fridays. Or no wildcards to debate? We need a Gavin Hastings in every round!

Diggers re-raises a point which has been raised before, in that voting does hinge on the make-up of the board (cycling and athletics seems to struggle so far). I read the piece on Zatopek, brilliant read, even if I don't believe he ever really ran 100 lots of 400m per day to train. Zatopek undoubtedly had a fantastic career, if one that may have been cut short perhaps in part by over-training. Then again, if he hadn't trained as much as he did, would he have been as successful? Probably not. Winning the 5000, 10000 and marathon in the same Games is simply remarkable.

On the others, Johnson is certainly the greatest 400m runner ever, and that 200m was staggering. On the balance though, I think Zatopek achieved slightly more: his triple is maybe the equivalent of winning all three sprint events. Though you have to factor in Johnson's amazing dominance outside the Olympics I guess, hmm, tough.

I'm going to discount Lara, much as I admire the man, his record simply doesn't measure up to the previous two. A great batsman, with some special special innings, but I'm not sure he'd rank in my top 5 all-time batsmen even, so just not quite on the same level.

Finally, Fangio. Great record and all that, but undoubtedly helped by the machinery for me. Seem to remember he had a tendency to race only with the best cars, and wouldn't let his team mate have anything like the advantages he gave himself (seem to remember a story of his car stopping for whatever reason, so he prompty took over his team mate's?). Also, benefits from the lack of competition around in his era. Would rank him at best 3rd in his field, so again, is nudged out of it.

Zatopek it is then

Mad for Chelsea wrote:...

Finally, Fangio. Great record and all that, but undoubtedly helped by the machinery for me. Seem to remember he had a tendency to race only with the best cars, and wouldn't let his team mate have anything like the advantages he gave himself (seem to remember a story of his car stopping for whatever reason, so he prompty took over his team mate's?). Also, benefits from the lack of competition around in his era. Would rank him at best 3rd in his field, so again, is nudged out of it.

Zatopek it is then

It was common practice at the time, if one car in a team broke down the driver could get into a team mate's car, and points for the race would be shared. Had Fangio not jumped in Peter Collins' Ferrari in the 1956 Italian GP Collins would (assuming he held his position at the time of the swap) have won the 1956 title. Fangio swapped cars 5 times in his career, 3 of them in 1956 (Ferrari are no stranger to team orders, even now ); once in 1953 (when he was 2nd in the championship - he only gained 1.5 points from a 4th place finish)) and once in 1951 - but Ascari (who finished 2nd in the 1951 championship) also swapped cars with a team mate in the same race.

I was between Zatopek and Johnson but went for Zatopek. That treble is incredible. If only I could give half votes.

Gone for Johnson, great write up by the way Chris.

His 19.32 like Chris is the defining moment not just in the 96 olympics but in the olympics fullstop, it didn't so much come out of the blue as he was the world record holder but beating it by that much was mindblowing. Also seeing him strolling down the back straight miles ahead of the workmanlike Roger Black is also sketched into my memory. In his role as commentator he shows real excitement for athletics and says exactly what's on his mind but in a very educated way, a great sportsmen and seemingly a great person.

This really is difficult. Based on the write ups I was leaning towards Johnson (as others have said, nice one Chris), but as a distance runner myself I feel almost obliged to go for Zatopek. And not just because of his accomplishments, though that treble will undoubtedly never be done again, but also due to what seems to be a personality that defines everything I admire in a sportsperson. Giving your gold medal away to someone else because 'they deserve it' is an incredible gesture.

They're all worthy contenders though, in particular watching Lara bat was something really special.

Particularly difficult group. Some very good write ups.

Seems the two distant greats are losing out to the two more recent ones. In a feeble attempt to halt the slide, I've gone for Fangio.