The Greatest Of All Time!

The recent retirement, then retractment, by Haile Gebrselassie got me thinking about who the greatest athlete has been in this sport. Primarily because that could be Haile himself – if nothing else, he is probably the greatest distance runner of all time.

Of course, track and field has a very long and storied history, so trying to determine the Greatest Of All Time is really a rather daunting task – especially given the various changes/stages that the sport has gone through. Because while individual PR’s are important, world records and all time lists will always get faster, farther, higher. What becomes important in trying to evaluate “The Best”, whether it be for a season, a decade, or in this case of all time, is how does an athlete compare to his peers. Which means that wins and losses; head to head records against the best of his/her era; and performance in championship settings become extremely important.

The biggest difficulty, at least for me, comes in trying to figure out where athletes of the earliest eras belong. Because prior to around the 1930’s, the Olympics (the largest gathering of the sports best) was rather limited in participation. And then the presence of the African nations wasn’t really felt until the 1960’s. Then of course there was the advent of true professionalism in the 1980’s, along with the introduction of the World Championships, that really opened the sport up to pretty much what we see today.

All of which creates some “differences” that have to be taken into account when trying to evaluate across the years. I mean comparing Paavo Nurmi to Haile Gebrselassie is not just as easy as saying they both ran and were successful at multiple disciplines – though both were dominant during their eras.

Having said all that, I do think that there are athletes that stand out from the crowd. So following is my list of the Top Ten Track and Field Athletes of All Time. In all but one case the athletes on the list are retired – because I wanted to take a look at the entirety of an athlete’s career. There are many athletes who early on or midway through their careers appeared to be headed for greatest of all time status, but then were felled by injury or simply a fall off in performance. Or in some cases saw another athlete eclipse them.

My only exception to the “retired” rule is Gebrselassie himself, as his career has already spanned over 10 years – enough time to get an adequate measure of true greatness in my opinion. Number ten on my list is also an exception in that he never held a WR – and by typical measure we consider that at some point an athlete should set the standard in order to be in the running for best of all time. In this athlete’s case I felt that being .01 off was close enough.

So without further adieu, here is my list of the Greatest Track and Field Athletes of All Time:

 

#10.	Allen Johnson – 110 Hurdles

Johnson never set a WR, but that doesn’t stop him from making my list. With gold in ‘95, ‘96, ‘97, ‘01, and ‘03 (and a very close 4th ‘in 00) Johnson had perhaps the most dominating career of any hurdler ever. And although he never set the WR, he was only .01sec off on two separate occasions with his PR 12.92, as Johnson ran under 13 seconds an astounding 11 times!

#9.	Jan Zelezny – Javelin

Zelezny owned his event for a decade winning three Olympics (‘92, ‘96, ‘00) and three World Championships (‘93, ‘95, ‘01). And even in his few “down” seasons won a bronze in ‘99 and fourth in ‘03. He set four WR’s in the process and still has 14 of the top 20 throws ever – including the top 5!

 

#8.	Al Oerter – Discus

Oerter is the one athlete on my list that did not compete during the “professional” era. However, missing out on professionalism didn’t keep Al from having a long and outstanding career. Because 4 Olympic titles, (‘56, ‘60’, ‘64, ‘68) puts him in elite territory. And is extraordinary when you consider that the last two titles came when the competition had supposedly moved past him as athletes like Danek and Silvester were out rewriting the record books. This following the earlier part of Oeter’s career where he set 4 World Records of his own.

 

#7.	Daley Thompson – Decathlon

It stands to reason that a decathlete should be on this list. After all he must become proficient in TEN events in order to win his event. Becoming the best at this event is difficult with the top guy changing routinely from year to year. Staying on top is difficult – which makes the career of Daley Thompson that much more outstanding. Thompson won back to back Olympic titles in ‘80 and ‘84, was fourth in ‘88 and won the first ever World title in ‘83.  He set four WR’s (8622, 8704, 8743, 8847) three times taking it back after having lost it and is still fourth best of all time – only record setters Dan O’Brien, Tomas Dvorak and Roman Sebrle having better scores!

 

#6.	Maurice Greene – 100 meters

Maurice Greene is one of those athletes that redefined an event. Prior to Greene, running sub 10.00 was something that happened in major championships and the occasional big match up. Greene refined his race pattern and showed that running at that level consistently was possible. Then with a combination of consistent race pattern and dogged competitive will, Greene went on to win World Championship titles in ‘97, ‘99, and ‘01; Olympic gold (‘00) and bronze (‘04), throwing in a World title over 200 meters in ‘99 for good measure. He also set the WR outdoors (9.79) and 2 WR’s indoors (6.39, 6.39). From the later part of the 90’s til the middle of the oughts Greene was the man to beat until injury finally took him down.

 

#5.	Edwin Moses – 400 meter hurdles

Another who redefined his event was Edwin Moses. A solid high hurdler with  400 meter ability, Moses took a cerebral approach to the sport. Combining his talents he focused on the intermediate hurdles, and using his engineering mind developed a 13 step pattern that he rode to 400 hurdle dominance. That dominance included Olympic titles in ‘76 & ‘84 (surely a third was in the cards if not for the boycott of the Moscow Games in ‘80) and a bronze in ‘88; World titles in ‘83 & ‘87; 3 World Cups wins; and  4 World Records (47.64, 47.45, 47.13 & 47.02). And of course “The Streak” – 122 straight wins without a loss that covered 9 years 9 months and 9 days! Nearly a decade without a loss against some of history’s best hurdlers including Harald Schmid, Danny Harris, Andre Phillips, Amadou Dia Ba, David  Patrick, Samuel Matete, and Kevin Young. To this day only WR holder Kevin Young has run faster – once – as Moses still has 4 of the 10 fastest times ever.

 

#4.	Sergei  Bubka – Pole Vault

Bubka seemed to always be beset by injury during the Olympic years. But that is about the only flaw that one can find in an otherwise fantastic career. In spite of his injury jinx he still won Olympic gold in ‘88 and put together a string of 6 World Championships titles in a row. As a matter of fact Bubka won the inaugural World Championships in 1983 and was the only vaulter to win gold until 1999! If that’s not impressive enough consider that when he came on the scene the WR was barely over 19 feet (19’ 1.5”). Bubka raised the outdoor record 17 times – becoming the only man to vault over 20 feet (20’ 1.5” outdoors) – a barrier he cleared 5 times in his career. Bubka has held the world record continuously since 1984 (over a quarter century) – his final mark being set in 1994 – and he holds the top 13 marks of all time! The greatest career ever in a single event in my humble opinion.

 

#3.	Michael Johnson – 200 & 400 meters

Separating the top three from the others is excellence in multiple events. And coming in at number three is a man who took what 60’s sprinters Henry Carr and Tommie Smith had hinted at and made it reality as Michael Johnson spent the 90’s dominating the 200 and 400 meters! From 1991 thru 2000 Johnson won 2 Olympic titles over 400 (‘96 & ‘00, the only man to win back to back titles at the distance); 4 World titles over 400 (‘93, ‘95, ‘97, and ‘99); 1 Olympic title over 200 (‘96); and  2 World titles over 200 (‘91 & ‘95) winning 200/400 doubles in ‘95 & ‘96! In the process he set 3 WR’s – 2 over 200 (19.66, 19.32) and 1 over 400 (43.18). He is still the WR holder over 400 (set in 1999) and his 200 record lasted for 12 years.

 

#2.	Haile Gebrselassie – distance runner

I have already discussed the career of Gebrselassie. He lands in the number two spot on my ranking because no other track athlete has been as dominant as he has been over such a range of distances. And should he end his career by taking the marathon anywhere near two hours he will leap frog his way into the number one position.

 

#1.	Carl Lewis – sprinter / jumper

Lewis is #1 because he displayed excellence on both the track AND the field – and he did so from 1980 through the 90’s! First the numbers: 4 Olympic titles in the long jump (‘84, ‘88, ‘92’ ‘96); 2 World titles in the long jump (‘83 & ‘87); 1 World silver in the long jump, (‘91); 1 Olympic title in the 200, (‘84); 1 Olympic silver in the 200 (‘88); 1 World bronze in the 200 (‘93); 2 Olympic titles in the 100 (‘84 & ‘88); 3 World titles in the 100 (‘83, ‘87, ‘91); 1 World bronze in the 100 (‘93); and  3 WR’s in the 100 (9.93, 9.92, 9.86). He duplicated Jesse Owens feat of four gold medals at the Olympics  in 1984 (100/200/LJ & 4x1) having also turned the trick at the World Championships the year before. And like Al Oerter at #8, he won four Olympic titles in a single event – the long jump. Love him or hate him – and there are those on both sides of the fence – Carl got it done when the lights were shining brightest. And he did so as both a sprinter and a jumper for a decade and a half. Easily making him the Greatest of All Time.