June 22, 2008
The World's Greatest Athlete? An interesting attempt by the WSJ, that great sports paper, to choose who is the "best" athlete in the world.
I mostly agree with the sports played by the top 10 athletes, but I'm a little surprised by 7, 8 and 10. And that a practitioner of 9 wasn't higher up.
For some reason, I was sure your post was a troll to reanimate that old chestnut: Is cycling a "sport"?
I think they sacrificed finding the best athletes for wide representation. That is, they have 1 from most sports rather than say multiple decathletes.
I think that also explains why sprinters are on the list. They're amazing at what they do, but it doesn't speak to their abilitities to jump, throw/catch, take a hit (1 of their criteria), etc. Also, if a sprinter is judged only on performance out of the water, why wouldn't Phelps be judged only on performance in the water? From triathlon experience, I would say it's easier for a swimmer to run than a runner to swim...
By that argument, then the Decathlete should be at #1 and A-Rod should be #2. Playing short stop isn't the physical walk in the park that most people think that baseball is, and since baseball is so hand-eye concentration heavy, most athletes in other things are completely helpless at actually hitting.
Well if hand eye coordination is important then I would like to submit the evidence of my Xbox360 gamerpoints into the official record and put myself in the running.
Just kidding, we all know I don't like any form of running.
I would agree that shortstops should receive a good bit of credit for overall athletecism, though the start-stop nature of baseball makes some question whether stamina is a constituent element.
I think an interesting way to think of it is "what would you encourage your child to play to achieve overall athletecism?" Basketball and soccer for cardiovascular fitness, explosive speed, extremity-eye coordination, strength, and agility seem like good recommendations. They also promote teamwork, strategy, field awareness, etc. which are part of the cognitive elements that I believe go into making a good athlete but were not emphasized.
As a neuropsychologist-in-training, i gotta say "don't do this at home (or anywhere)", but i love mixed martial arts, and those guys are phenomenal athletes. I would place their athletecism above that of boxers, which is remarkable, but i won't be encouraging anyone to participate. Unless it's the new Atari MMA UFC championships. And then I wouldn't encourage anyone to challenge Natedogg and his magic thumbs.
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I'm also really surprised to see a 110 hurdler beating a 400 runner or a (400 hurdler).
Really, I would expect the top track athlete to be someone running the 1500, which isn't really that much slower than a sprint at the Olympic level (WR = 3:26:00 = 13 second/100m)
posted by Valatan at 06:13PM CST on June 22