Is Lance the greatest American athlete of all time?

ClaytonN · #1 07-23-2005, 06:52 PM

Where would you categorize Lance among the world's greatest American athletes?

Vince Young · #2 07-23-2005, 06:54 PM

Nowhere near them.

holeplug · #3 07-23-2005, 06:59 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Nowhere near them.

[/ QUOTE ]

Voltron87 · #4 07-23-2005, 07:01 PM

hes up there.

questions like this are pretty stupid and pointless.

ClaytonN · #5 07-23-2005, 08:55 PM

[ QUOTE ]
questions like this are pretty stupid and pointless.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, the question was posed in an afternoon ESPN program and I thought it was intriguing.

Some people flat out say that Lance should be nowhere near the likes of Jordan, Thorpe, Tiger, etc. Meanwhile, others say he's possibly greater than all of them.

Personally, I think there should be some kind of echelon alloted for the people who truly dominated their sport, regardless of what it was. This would go down to crap like darts. I only say darts because there's a guy named Phil Taylor who's won something like 11 or 12 straight world championships. That is sickening.

Anyways, yeah. I think Lance should definitely be up there. He dominated a sport so thoroughly, and in this day and age that's hard to do.

Toro · #6 07-23-2005, 07:05 PM

Jim Thorpe

ericd · #7 07-26-2005, 09:43 AM

Agree 100%. Played both major league baseball and football for many years. But the record that amazes me the most is that his winning decathlon score in 1912 would still have been good enough for 2nd place in 1948.

Arnfinn Madsen · #8 07-23-2005, 07:35 PM

Stupid question, but I will answer anyhow [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. I think he is currently the best athlete in the world. I can't see any other sports that demand more than winning Tour de France. During the three weeks you more or less spend your body, it is nothing like it was when you started.

P.S. Hoped you watched the stage today, seeing how everyone cheered him (they cheer the 150th place finisher too though [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]) as a real hero. Not many of the cheerers were Americans. Millions turns out to do this, I have never seen millions of non-Americans show up to cheer Tiger Woods or Pete Sampras.

Arnfinn Madsen · #9 07-23-2005, 08:14 PM

To add to the cheering:

Poll in Norwegian newspaper (remember we are a winter sports nation):

Is Lance Armstrong the world's greatest athlete?
Yes: 79%
No: 21%

ChipWrecked · #10 07-26-2005, 08:28 AM

Hey Arnfinn:

Congrats to your countryman Thor Hushovd on winning the points category. Am I correct that he is the first Norwegian to do so?

I follow the Tour because I ride a bike about 5000 miles a year (say maybe 8500km). It may not be a sport but it will get one's sorry ass in shape, that's for sure.