v2 G.O.A.T The Last 16 Match 4

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Friday’s match was battled out between Jack Nicklaus and Jesse Owen for a spot in the last 8, after taking a very early substantial lead it was Nicklaus that looked set to take poll position and progress. Owen fought back admirably before eventually falling short by 14 votes, the Olympic champion exits the competition after defeating Sachin Tendulkar, Sugar Ray Leonard and Ayrton Senna on route to the last 16.

Today’s match pits Bjorn Borg vs. Steve Redgrave.

Please vote for the participant you believe has achieved the most in sport

Please leave a comment as to why you voted

Bjorn Borg- Tennis- Championed by 88chris05

"“I wish Borg would let someone else have a go at the title for a change"" said tennis legend John McEnroe, after he'd lost the 1980 Wimbledon final to the ice-cool Swede Bjorn Borg. Indeed, of tennis' four major tournaments (now usually referred to as 'Grand Slams' although, as plenty of tennis fans will tell you, that's something of a misnomer), Wimbledon has produced the fewest champions in the open era, which spans from 1968 - the year in which the world's best professionals were allowed to play in the 'big four' - until the present day.

We've grown used to seeing one player make themselves synonamous with the green grass of SW19, and make the trophy their own; Roger Federer in the past decade, Pete Sampras before him, and Boris Becker before the pair of them. Certainly, this happens far more at Wimbledon than at any of the other tennis majors. But there was one man who got there first before all of them in guaranteeing that his name will always be linked with those images of strawberries, all-white kits and, unfortunately, Cliff Richard - and that man was Bjorn Rhune Borg.

It's impossible to do justice to the way in which Borg grabbed tennis by the scruff of its neck and slapped it in to life when he burst on to the scene in the mid seventies. Like Alex Higgins in snooker or Ian Thorpe in swimming, Borg's presence turned what was seen largely as a fuddy-duddy game for upper class Brits and our descendants from Down Under in to a cool, world-wide televised phenomenon. There was tennis before Borg, and tennis after, and no other player in the men's game has ever brought about as much change.

What was the reason for this? Well, there was no single one, but a combination of factors. The good looks, the quiet yet totally absorbing charisma, and the new level of power and athleticism which Borg gave to the game all helped. In 1979, he earned over one million dollars in a single season, a figure which would have been unimaginable just half a decade earlier.

He was also an incredibly young man in what had, until then, a little bit more of a slow-burning sport; Borg was still barely eighteen years old when he won his first of eleven majors, the French Open, in June 1974. When he repeated the trick the following year, as well as leading Sweden to their first Davis Cup victory, the message was clear - no longer could the old timers (such as the wonderful and indefatigable Ken Rosewall who, in 1974, had made the Wimbledon final aged forty, a whole two decades after his first) last the pace - Borg was ushering in a new era of young, athletic superstars such as Jimmy Connors and John McEnroe.

On the European red clay, Borg was close to unbeatable. He triumphed at Roland Garros / the French Open six times; 1974, 1975, 1978, 1979, 1980 and 1981. Though his overall haul has since been surpassed by Rafael Nadal's seven, his mark of four on the spin from 1978 to 1981 is yet to be bettered.

Borg's other five majors were all won at Wimbledon, and all of them in succession; his 1976-1980 achievement has still not been outstripped, and even the phenomenal Roger Federer had to settle for equalling it, with a 'fivetimer' of his own between 2003 and 2007.

However, the pure statistics can't convey the enourmity of Borg's achievements in being so dominant in both Paris and London. First of all, in Borg's peak, there was only one week which separated the end of the French Open and the start of Wimbledon. In more recent times, this has been lengthened to a fortnight and, starting in the near future, will be extended even further to a three week break. For Borg, there was no chance to have a prolonged rest, to quickly ease his way back in to the different and varied rigours of grass court tennis after playing for so long on the clay. As soon as one was finished, the other was knocking on the door.

And even more crucially, the difference between how clay and grass courts played back in the seventies can not be overstated. I remember an interview with the long-time coach of André Agassi (one of the few men to have completed the coveted 'career Slam' by winning all four tennis majors at some stage), Gil Reyes, in which he touched on how difficult and large the shift in training for clay tennis and then quickly moving over to grass was. Reyes said that he and Agassi had to totally change their regime as, ""it's not just like a different kind of tennis - it's like a totally different sport altogether.""

That was true in Agassi's nineties pomp, and it was even more so in Borg's peak. Nowadays, it's common to see fans and players alike bemoaning the fact that grass courts, previously the fastest and most 'specialised' in tennis, have been made too similar to the slower clay and Australian hard ones, and that there is a lack of variation in the game now. A cursory glance at Wimbledon these days, in which you'll nary a see a serve and volley player making any great inroads in to the tournament (previously, these players had been the dominant ones on the surface) is proof enough of this.

However, during Borg's career, clay and grass were the antithesis of each other. The high bounce and slow play of Paris was startling different to the low, skidding grass of SW19; conventional wisdom said that, while baseliners would always be successful on clay, they couldn't hope to beat the more lythe, so-called 'artistic' serve and volley players who prospered on the faster surface at Wimbledon. Borg made a mockery of that theory - between all of his triumphs at both events, there were three years - 1978, 1979 and 1980 - in which he won both the French Open and Wimbledon back to back.

To me, this is one of the most remarkable feats in sport. After 1980, it was another twenty-eight years until Rafael Nadal became the next man to pick up the two tournaments in the same year and, while the Spaniard's form in 2008 was sensational, as far as I'm concerned it just doesn't quite have that same aura around it as Borg's achievement in mastering both the red and green surfaces so effortlessly and so often.
Borg's influence on the game is everywhere, even now. Whenever Roger Federer's ice-cool temperament and clear-headedness under pressure is mentioned, it's inevitably linked back to Borg, who became known appropriately as the 'Ice Man' because of these qualities. When there's talk of how Rafael Nadal has done so much to attract females and children to the game with his looks, youthful energy and star quality, there will always be those quick to point out that, in fact, it was this incredible Swede who was there first.

Although a major on a hard court alluded him (he seldom played the Australian Open which, at the time, was merely a poor relation to the other 'Slams, and McEnroe and Connors conspired to make him a runner up four times at the US Open), it is likely that Borg would have surpassed Roy Emerson's (then) record of twelve career Grand Slams had he not retired aged just 26 in 1982, months after losing to McEnroe in the Flushing Meadows final for a second successive year.

Despite this, Borg, incredibly, won eleven of the twenty-seven Grand Slams he entered in his professional career - a quite frankly ridiculous ration which no other man can get close to. He was six times ranked at the top of the world rankings during his time as a player. To the nearest percent, he won 90% of his matches in majors, and 83% throughout his whole career - and once more, these are records.

But Borg was more than just a record breaker - he was a true original, tennis' first superstar. Seldom can you find a person who has been involved in a sport for such a short amount of time but has done as much, not only in terms of achievement but also in terms of popularising the game and paving the way for a generation of mega stars who followed. The 1980 Wimbledon final, in which Borg edged out his great rival McEnroe in five sets in a classic, is still spoken of in reverent terms all these years later. In 2008, an ESPN poll quizzed a series of tennis analysts, former players and writers to hypothetically build their perfect player - and Borg's name was the only one to be mentioned in all four categories; defence, footwork, intangibles and mental toughness.
""People say I could probably have won more Grand Slams and it's probably true, but the decision was mine and I'm glad I made it"" said Borg in 1983, a year after his retirement had stunned the tennis world. But more tellingly, he finished off by saying, ""My dream is to be remembered as the greatest tennis player of all time - I guess you could say I have come close.""

Steve Redgrave- Rowing- Championed by ChequeredJersey

One of the key features, in my opinion, for the GOAT in all sports is that a candidate must transcend his sport and attain significance and influence in the lives of people beyond the hard-core sporting fan-base. They should also attain dominance within their own sport. Many sportsmen (this term includes women too) are talented, some enough that they stand out above their peers. Far fewer stand out across the eras of a sport. Of these, even fewer are household names, celebrities or national icons especially in the ‘less popular sports’. Other sportsmen garner fame and celebrity status, but few of these can say they achieved unique accomplishments for sporting reasons. Those that fit into both categories and also manage to be uniquely great across a type of sport, not merely their own specialty, are incredibly rare. Sir Steven Geoffrey Redgrave, CBE, deputy lieutenant, is one of these. I will endeavour to show how in this article. Sorry that it’s a bit long, I got carried away…

If you ask a member of the British public to name an Olympian, chances are Redgrave will be near the top of the list. If you ask them to name a rower, I’d be amazed if he weren’t. He remains the only person to win 5 Gold Olympic Medals in 5 consecutive games in an endurance sport (as well as a solitary Bronze) and he adds 9 Gold, 2 Silver and 1 Bronze World Championship Medals from 1986-99 to that tally. He won his first Gold at age 22 and his last at 38, 16 years of Olympic domination in a sport that is based on physical strength and fitness, attributes that for a man peak in one’s mid-twenties. During the majority of that time, Redgrave’s crews were expected to win every race they entered and in a sport that has a number of strong competitive nations and is subject to conditions and how the crew clicks and other variables they nearly did win every race for nearly 20 years.

Non-internationally, he won different categories at Henley Royal Regatta, the premier sprint racing rowing race in the world, 21 times, the last one at age 39. These events ranged from sweep (one bladed) to scull (two oars) and from singles on his own to coxed 4s with a number of partners, as were his Olympic medals. The only constant was Redgrave. He also represented England in the 1986 Commonwealth games where he won 3 Golds in different races. I don’t know how many times he won the premier Head (long distance) racing event in the world, the Head of the River Race on the Thames, but he certainly did win it with Leander VIII and IV several times as well as his sprint victories listed here.

Most rowers specialise at rowing on one side of the boat – Bowside (starboard, or the right side of the boat from the cox’ point of view) or Strokeside (port). As well as sculling with 2 oars, Redgrave rowed both Bow and Strokeside and won Olympic Gold on both sides, testament to his technical proficiency (something very underappreciated by lay people regarding rowing) not just his strength. He was also renowned as a tactician and made the calls in his coxless crews and knew exactly when to wait and when to push another crew.
The only thing missing from his portfolio is a Boat Race victory, due to ineligibility.

He was also World indoor rowing champion (on a ergometric rowing machine) in 1990 and was British bobsleighing Champion and has run several London Marathons for charity. He did all of this with Ulcerative Colitis and Diabetes Mellitus Type 1, both chronic and debilitating diseases with severe health effects, both worse under the stress of severe physical exertion which rowing training entails more than most existent activities.

These are his considerable achievements within sport. Related to these, he has been BBC Sports Personality of the Year, won a Knighthood and a CBE from the Queen, a special pin from the Olympic Committee for winning 5 Golds in consecutive Games, a Thomas Keller Medal from the International Rowing Federation for his Outstanding International Career, has Carried the Olympic Torch in the Olympic Stadium at 2012 London, been the UK’s Olympic Flag bearer in 1992 and ’96, won Celebrity Gladiators, a BBC Sports Lifetime Achievement Award. He has set up rowing academies in India, raised millions of pounds for Charity, is an ambassador for Fairtrade and Founder and President of the Steve Redgrave Trust, and the vice-president of Diabetes UK and involved in many other charities. He is now Sports Legacy Champion and a Member of Sports Relief’s Steering Committee. The President of British Rowing, a Steward of Henley Royal Regatta and Vice President of the British Olympic Association and now a decade after his retirement is still the face of Rowing.

Since his retirement he has done so much for Sport and charity. He is a British legend who represents his country now as an ambassador. He epitomises determination, pushing oneself beyond the limit and the honour of representing one’s country. Inside his sport he has been a master and a mentor and outside of it a Champion for all the qualities we get from playing sport and all the emotion we suffer through spectating it. He is surely the inspiration for so many rowers, so many British sportspeople across every sport. He has touched many lives through the greatest of his achievements, people crying with him and for him. For all this, I propose Sir Steve Redgrave as the GOAT.

Unless we're going to decide this on "my sport's bigger than your sport" (which either means we're down to voting for anglers, cricketers and footballers or we have to impose an arbitrary cut-off), you have to try to look at achievements.

Borg was a great tennis player - but there are at least three who are pretty much indisputably greater, and players like Djokovic playing today who may yet surpass even them.

I know a lot about rowing, and Redgrave has without doubt achieved more in rowing than anyone else. It's probable that Pinsent was marginally more powerful in their last Olympic cycle; but by this point Redgrave was in his late 30s - eligible for veterans' events - and had been unquestionably the best for the previous 12 years.

He also had an appeal outside of Britain. There's a lovely story of an Australian gent talking to some of the British rowers before the Sydney final who admitted "Mate, I want him to win. And my son's in the Aussie boat."

What this seems to come down to is whether rowing is "worthy" of offering up a GOAT candidate because not as many people do it as other sports.

Rowing isn't a mass participation sport because it depends on expensive equipment. That's a fact that you can't change. You can't row without a boat, there's no equivalent of jumpers for goalposts and tin can for a ball. It also demands tremendous commitment and ability even by the standards of other professional sports.

There are top class footballers, cricketers and golfers who have got by on talent rather than hard work. There are no top class rowers who have not worked themselves into exhaustion again, and again and again to get where they are. Heck, there are no competitive rowers at any level who haven't trained comparatively harder and longer than their peers in other sports (I remember our boat captain saying to us after our third 5am outing of the week as a college Second XV - "You know, if we did this in any other sport, we'd be university standard."). There is a reason that the Concept II Rowing Ergometer (that's the big, fan-driven rowing machine in the corner of the gym) is the training equipment of choice for most cardio intensive sports.

By any objective criterion except the size of the sport, Redgrave is a leading contender:
- Number of Olympic Golds: 5
- Longevity: atop his sport for at least 18 years
- Dominance: unbeaten for 4 years
- Uniqueness: the only rower to win two medals in rowing at a single Olympics (which is much, much harder than in cycling, swimming or athletics)
- Versatility: Olympic competitor at both the summer and winter Olympics

If we're going to make the size of the sport a criterion, then someone (Diggers?) please suggest a threshold beyond which sports are "worthy". And a rationale for it. Otherwise, it's just arbitrary or worse, an excuse for favouritism ("I'm going to knock this candidate because I prefer other sports").

If this is really about achievement, then we can debate the merits of various achievements. But you really do have to be going some to beat the list above.

Rowing isnt that expensive, you dont need to buy a boat, you just need to join a rowing club where you will have access to their boats. Geography may make it restrictive but its not cost so I dont see that can be held as an excuse. You can join Kingston rowing club as a casual member for £200 a year.
You can argue that you cant get by on talent in rowing, basically because you dont need any outside of physical fitness. Its no different to working out on a step machine, maybe if people put that into a nice setting like a mountain side people would start to consider it an Olympic sport.
I dont discount the "except the size of the sport", I think its a massive point to be taken into account, it does come down to the my sports bigger than your sport element. I cant make an exact rationale for it Im afraid, Id hope that most people on here can apply their own rationale as to what constitutes a true global sport with a large talent field.

Agree, Rowing isn't in the least elitist. I live less than 200m from a club and it's cheap as chips.

Diggers wrote:Rowing isnt that expensive, you dont need to buy a boat, you just need to join a rowing club where you will have access to their boats. Geography may make it restrictive but its not cost so I dont see that can be held as an excuse. You can join Kingston rowing club as a casual member for £200 a year.
You can argue that you cant get by on talent in rowing, basically because you dont need any outside of physical fitness. Its no different to working out on a step machine, maybe if people put that into a nice setting like a mountain side people would start to consider it an Olympic sport.
I dont discount the "except the size of the sport", I think its a massive point to be taken into account, it does come down to the my sports bigger than your sport element. I cant make an exact rationale for it Im afraid, Id hope that most people on here can apply their own rationale as to what constitutes a true global sport with a large talent field.

My point was more that you can't pick up rowing as a casual activity - most kids have the equipment to play football or cricket, or get the opportunity to play it at school, and so will have some experience of it before they decide to join a club. But most kids - however close they live to a river - don't get exposure to rowing unless they have some background or connection or go to the right kind of school. It's also a pretty poor spectator sport in most of its forms so will never have the TV exposure of football. Doesn't make it any less of a sport.

It is absolute tosh to say that rowing doesn't require any talent outside of physical fitness. There are plenty of people who can pull fast times on a rowing machine but are useless rowers (myself included) because they don't have the skill to control the blade in the water under pressure. Even on a rowing machine there is a real skill involved in delivering an efficient stroke that makes the most of the power you're exerting, especially if you want to compete at the highest level and not destroy your back. If you're going to knock out rowing because it doesn't involve fancy footwork or ball skills, you'd have to knock out cycling as well. The level of talent required is very similar.

Using size of the sport as a factor raises all sorts of questions and I don't think you can reasonably keep citing it and just rely on some kind of "gut feel". How big does a sport have to be to be worthy of your consideration? Are we talking participation or watching? Is there some sort of sliding scale of greatness whereby an outstanding performance in a smaller sport will be normalised to be somehow less great than a lesser performance in a bigger sport?

You have to be careful with these things. I bet there are more top level rowers worldwide than there are top level boxers. There are about 7000 World Cup class rowers, based on the number of events and heats. To match that would require over 400 world class boxers in each weight division. I don't think there are that many. So should we rule out Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson purely on that basis?

Actually Ive raised exactly the same concerns for boxing, I dont think...just like rowing.....that its a mass participation sport. Though it has been pointed out that back in SRR day it was a mass participation sport, rowing never has been.
Clearly a lot of people watch boxing so its a mass participation sport on that level, Im more interested in the talent pool that a competitor has to compete against to get to the top of his/her sport.
Im not going to put together any form of imperical data for you, if you are really interested you can do that yourself. Its stark staringly obvious though that rowing doesnt even begin to remotely compare with sports like tennis and football or cricket or basketball, its very much a minority participation sport in comparison to those sports.
Another point. If you look at the lists of rowers who have won a lot of medals there are quite a lot who have won many times over really long careers, Redgrave, Lipa, Pinsent, the guys who won 3 single sculls in a row.
In short its not that uncommon for the event...which simply means that perhaps rather than be flabbergasted at how long Redgrave kept going for we should accept....after looking at the history or repeat medalists at different games.....which doesnt tend to happen in say athletics or swimming....that rowing simply lends itself to extended careers.

I can't argue with you about the absolute numbers - although I would say that a) if you define "watching" as "participation" then I am a world-class rugby player and b) I still don't think it matters. There are a lot of professional footballers, cricketers and anglers. How many of them are, hand on heart, absolutely world class sportspeople? For all its participants, England don't seem to be able to find 11 internationally competitive players.

"Really long careers" - Really? To win 3 medals in a row requires you to be at the top of your sport for 8-10 years; that's not an uncommon career length in most sports. From your early 20s to your early 30s.

5 medals in successive Olympics is a whole different ball game. It means being at the top for 16 years - twice as long. That's longer than many sportspeople's entire careers. Redgrave was 38 when he won his last medal. Pinsent might have been able to match that; to beat it he would, if memory serves, have had to have gone on until he was 40.

Without having the statistics to hand, the frequency of people being medallists at multiple games doesn't seem to be that different in rowing than it is in cycling or swimming. But only 6 people have won Gold at 5 or more in any sport, and only 2 of them in an endurance sport. Maybe we should be looking at Lipa in this contest - after all, she achieved hers over 20 years, and won Gold and Silver at a single Olympics. On the other hand, she was never dominant outside of Olympics years so arguably was just very good at peaking for the games.

As far as I know nobody has won 3 successive golds in a male athletics track event....but I could be wrong. It's not a sport that will sustain a long career in that sense, I think rowing clearly is in comparison and Lipa and Redgrave prove this, as does Pinsent. Three successive golds even is very rare but if you look at rowing there are many who seem to have medaled at a lot of games.
It may be an endurance sport but it also clearly lends itself to long careers.

With regards to Redgrave and his worldwide appeal, sports illustrated which is very orientated towards american sportsmen consider him to be among the greatest olympians of all time and a strong contender to be rated above Phelps. The fact he's british seems to make people want to attempt to be clever and dismiss his claim to overall greatness, whether he's british or not he's up there with any olympian of all time.

Diggers arguments have convinced me that Redgrave doesn't come close to matching Borg's achievements so Borg gets my vote.

Plus I've always thought Redgrave is a conceited, pompous pr!ck so I'm glad to have a legitimate reason to dump on him.

Hibbz wrote:Plus I've always thought Redgrave is a conceited, pompous pr!ck so I'm glad to have a legitimate reason to dump on him.

some of his pre London 2012 interviews were particularly sickening. horrible to listen to him blowing his own trumpet so much.

Bjorg's achievement of five Wimbledons and five French Opens is one of those legendary feats in sport, particularly given the stark differences between the two surfaces in that era. Amazingly he won those W titles without playing any grass warm up tournaments beforehand.

However, much as I love Borg, The Iceman burned bright but all too briefly to be in serious contention in this competition.

Redgrave may be from a niche sport but his achievements are still immense. To stay at the top of such a gruelling discipline for so long especially with the medical problems that he had is amazing.

His achievements pip those of Borg - although as others have stated I would not have either in a top 8 of world GOATs.



emancipator

One question is realistically what more could either do in their sport, within conceivable human limits. Redgrave, IMO, not much (he could have done different events, not more as I'd argue that's borderline impossible in an Olympics, and he rowed at the top level in a variety of different boat types anyway). Borg had loads of things he didn't achieve and has had his acheivements bested in different ways by several different successors

One factor that, IMVHO, pips Redgrave over Borg, is that Redgrave's longevity trumps Borg. Borg had his reasons to walk away from Tennis, mental mostly.

As a sport, Tennis is still my preference, but I would consider Redgrave a better contender in the next round.

PS: Need to think a bit more, before I vote for either.

This ones a joke. If Redgrave or whatever his name is was Venezuelan this would have a different result. If Borg was Venezuelan it wouldnt matter. Class is class wherever youre from.

And how big is rowing in sport? Once every 4 years it gets on the international stage.

Truly delusional.

Heres a poll: What % of voters for this are from the UK?

Sorted...