Greatest Athletes of All Time List

 Top 10 Greatest Athletes of All Time"

With so many Sports fields and ages to consider, determining sports’ comprehensive GOAT will always prove impossible.  There is always a debate about the greatest athlete of all time. An athlete is deemed successful by the number of awards they have acquired or the number of scores they have gained throughout their career.  However, the distinction of an athlete is identified by their capacity to charm and enlighten people to partake in their concerned area.  Several sportsmen have been acknowledged as the greatest athletes of all time in the entire world, due to their influential skills and qualified sportsmanship.  These athletes have strengthened the stature of sports among the general public. Also, they have impacted society and people to think out of the box and be a part of the sports franchise. Let’s go ahead and check out the top 10 greatest athletes of all time.

Here's a list of 10 athletes often considered among the greatest of all time, spanning various sports: Michael Jordan (basketball), Muhammad Ali (boxing), Wayne Gretzky (hockey), Usain Bolt (track), Michael Phelps (swimming), Babe Ruth (baseball), Jim Thorpe (multiple sports), Lionel Messi (soccer), Tiger Woods (golf), and Roger Federer (tennis).

The list

10 Michael Jordan (basketball)

Michael Jordan is an American businessman and former professional basketball player. He played fifteen seasons in the National Basketball Association (NBA), winning six NBA championships with the Chicago Bulls.

Jordan’s personal accolades and accomplishments include six NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (MVP) awards, ten NBA scoring titles (both all-time records), five NBA MVP awards, ten All-NBA First Team designations, nine All-Defensive First Team honors, fourteen NBA All-Star Game selections, three NBA All-Star Game MVP awards, three NBA steals titles and the 1988 NBA Defensive Player of the Year Award.

9 Muhammad Ali (boxing)

Muhammad Ali was an American professional boxer and activist. Nicknamed “The Greatest”, he is widely considered one of the most important and renowned sports figures of the 20th century.  In 1999, he was quoted as Sportsman of the Century by Sports Illustrated and the Sports Personality of the Century by the BBC.

He fought in several historic boxing matches, which include highly publicized fights with Sonny Liston, Joe Frazier, the Thrilla in Manila, and his fight with George Foreman Rumble in the Jungle.

8 Wayne Gretzky (hockey)

Wayne Gretzky is a Canadian former professional ice hockey player and former head coach. He played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for four teams from 1979 to 1999.

He was nicknamed “the Great One”, and he has been hailed as the greatest hockey player ever by many sportswriters, players, and the NHL itself.

Gretzky is the top goal scorer, assist producer, and point scorer in NHL history, and has more assists in his career than any other player who scored total points.

7 Usain Bolt (track)

Starting off strong, we have Usain Bolt, arguably the fastest human of all time. I do not think many people can argue that Bolt does not deserve to be on this list after he clocked an unbelievable speed of 43.99 km/hr (27.33 mph) in 2011.

This speed is the fastest recorded speed of any human. Bolt is the combination of fantastic genetics and hard work, pairing to create the most well-known runner in the world.

6 Michael Phelps (swimming)

As the most decorated Olympian of all time, with a staggering 23 gold medals, Michael Phelps has to be on this list. By comparison, the athlete with the second most gold medals only has 9.

A dominant swimmer with a near-perfect swimming build and multiple world records, he is the greatest swimmer of all time. At 15 years old, he broke his first world record in the 200 m butterfly at the 2001 World Aquatics Championships. I would also argue that he is the most dominant athlete of all time, who at the peak of his ability hardly ever lost a race.

5 Babe Ruth (baseball)

I do not know much about baseball, and from what I do know, the greatest baseball player of all time is a highly debated topic with no clear winner. Nevertheless, I am placing Babe Ruth on this list because of his notoriety, and because he hit an incredible 714 home runs in his career.

4 Jim Thorpe (multiple sports)

Jim Thorpe was an American athlete and Olympic gold medalist. Thorpe was the first-born American to win a gold medal for the United States in the Olympics.

He is considered one of the most versatile athletes in modern sports. He won two Olympic gold medals in the 1912 Summer Olympics, one in classic pentathlon and the other in the decathlon.

3 Lionel Messi (Footballar)

Lionel Messi is a professional footballer who currently plays for the Spanish club Barcelona and the Argentina national team.  He is often regarded as the best player in the world and widely viewed as one of the greatest players of all time.

Messi has won a record seven Ballon d’Or awards and a record six European Golden Shoes.  With Barcelona, he won a club-record 35 trophies, including ten La Liga titles, seven Copa del Rey titles, and four UEFA Champions Leagues.

2 Tiger Woods (golf)

The youngest ever Masters winner at age 21, Tiger Woods is the best golfer in my opinion.

Woods currently has 15 majors and potentially could win more in his career. His meteoric rise to fame brought lots of attention to the sport, and hopefully, we will see him win more in the future.

1 Roger Federer (tennis)