greatest male T&F athletes (20th century)

[Marlow]

Re: greatest male T&F athletes (20th century)

Is the question literally greatest ATHLETE? Or is it: most accomplished?

To me the 3 greatest athletes were
1. Jim Thorpe
2. Deion Sanders
3. Bo Jackson
but I'll thow in
Sergey Bubka as a 4th.

The BEST athletes can do ANYthing superbly. The first three did, the fourth could have.

[4:24-miler]

Re: greatest male T&F athletes (20th century)

Is the question literally greatest ATHLETE? Or is it: most accomplished?

To me the 3 greatest athletes were
1. Jim Thorpe
2. Deion Sanders
3. Bo Jackson
4. Sergey Bubka

The BEST athletes can do ANYthing superbly. The first three did, the fourth could have.

I'd thrown in Ken Norton, Sr. He was a really good track athlete. In high school he's often compete in eight events until a rules changed forced Norton to just do four events per meet. His high school coach wanted Norton to go to San Jose State to be trained by Bud Winter to be a decathlete. His coach believed Norton had the potential to be an Olympic champion decathlete. Norton went to college on a football scholarship.

[dbirds]

Re: greatest male T&F athletes (20th century)

what about Sebrle, O'Brien, Thompson, Mathias and Rafer?