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Originally Posted by Jetstream
I'm sure that the OP meant for this thread to be a debate of the top athletes in any given profession whereas they must continually prove themselves to be worthy of the title of best athlete.
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Seems to me like you're assuming an awful lot. He never said anything about a debate or limiting it to professional sports:
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Originally Posted by joeyjoey
Hey guys ESPN is looking for the top athletes in any sports. You can nominate your fave athletes here...
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To me it was both an informative post (directing you to the ESPN article) and an invitation to share your opinions, based on whatever criteria you deem appropriate.
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Originally Posted by Jetstream
Before you go about condemning for just stating a notion that all athletes must be professionals, why don't you go about clicking the link joeyjoey provided for us, read the article in question, and then state if non-professional, non-commercial, and virtually non-identificational persons should be considered among the Top 32 Athletes.
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In my opinion, I would not consider those three in the top athletes, professional or otherwise (by the way, I obviously read the article because I quoted it in my first post on this thread). However, that was not the reason I responded to your post. The issue I had was the fact that you were questioning whether those three were even "technically athletes". Also that you, just like above, seemed to be making assumptions about other peoples intentions/thought processes:
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Originally Posted by Jetstream
Ponder on those questions, because I am sure those are all prerequisites for a nomination of your best athlete.  |
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Originally Posted by The_Jazz
Full disclosure - I'm an athletic snob, so treat me as a representative sample of only me.
Drivers are just that - drivers. I don't doubt that the skill requires some endurance, but give me a break. Those folks literally sit on their asses. The only reason that you don't see fat guys doing it is that they weigh more. I have no doubts that they're incredibly brave and well trained to do what they do, but driving is a learned skill that anyone can learn to do well.
By the same token, golfers aren't athletes either in my book. Golf is all about hand/eye coordination and very little strength or speed muscles.
To me, an athlete has to demonstrate at least two of the following to be eligible - endurance, stregth, speed - in an amount that physcially taxes major systems of the body.
Many baseball players (I'm looking at you John Kruk and Mark Grace) fail that test.
Finally, Jetstream's running team fails the test because there wasn't any competition. Athletes compete. I'm not sure how to define what these guys did, but they didn't compete against anyone else.
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So from what you've said, you consider athletism to be purely about muscles and their performance (in the context of competition). Hand/eye coordination and skill don't mean anything because they can be learned/practiced... is that correct?
So then would you consider those competing in the "World's Strongest Man" competitions to be the best athletes in the world?