Greatest athlete of the decade, on the 5ths

Cafe Society
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Inspired by the Jerry Rice comment in the ongoing Greatest Athlete of the Decade question, here we pose the same question but organize the decades (on the Fives and not by the Zeroes). That is, the decades go from 1905-1915, 1915-1925, etc. up to 1995-2005. How much does that change the results?

FWIW here are my admittedly Americentric picks:

1905-1915 Jim Thorpe

1915-1925 Ty Cobb

1925-1935 Babe Ruth

1935-1945 Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Jessie Owens, Joe Louis, Sammy Baugh

1945-1955 Jackie Robinson, Otto Graham

1955-1965 Bill Russell, Sandy Koufax,

1965-1975 Mohammed Ali, Bob Gibson, Lew Alcindor/Kareem Abdul Jabbar, Peggy Fleming

1975-1985 Reggie Jackson, Magic Johnson

1985-1995 Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Whatshisname Jordan

1995-2005 Barry Bonds, Roger Clemens, Shaq O’Neill

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1905-1915 Jim Thorpe

1915-1925 Ty Cobb

1925-1935 Babe Ruth, Jack Dempsey, Lou Gehrig

1935-1945 Stan Musial, Ted Williams, Jessie Owens, Joe Louis, Sammy Baugh

1945-1955 Jackie Robinson, Otto Graham, Rocky Marciano

1955-1965 Willie Mays, Bill Russell, Sandy Koufax, Jim Brown, Johnny Unitis

1965-1975 Mohammed Ali

1975-1985 Magic Johnson, Sugar Ray Leonard, Larry Bird

1985-1995 Jerry Rice, Joe Montana, Micheal Jordan.

1995-2005 Barry Bonds, Tiger Woods, **Bernard Hopkins ** (Current undisputed Middleweight Champion of the World – 20 sucessfull title defenses since April 1995.)

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I don’t know where you’d put her, but a greatest athlete list isn’t complete if it doesn’t have Babe Didrikson in it.

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Lance Armstrong 1995-2005

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What’s Dempsey doing on the 1925-1935 list? He only fought three fights during the period, and lost two of them.

I’d include Bobby Jones for the 1925-1935 period, Bill Tilden for the 1915-1925 period, and Jack Johnson for the 1905-1915 period.

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Lance Armstrong, 1995-2005

Yeah, Americans don’t pay that much attention to cycling, but it’s important to note that he has won a lot more than just the Tour (Dauphine Libere, Tour de Romandie, Tour of Switzerland, Tour of Georgia, World Championships, to name a few). His palmares are not lacking outside the Tour de France, despite grumbles to the contrary. In the history of cycling, he is perhaps second only to the legendary Belgian Eddy Merckx in all-time greatness.

It’s also worth noting that, worldwide, the Tour de France is one of the by far most watched spectactor sports, second only to the World Cup on TV, and the most watched by far in terms of live fans. In all of Eupore and many, many other countries besides, enormous numbers of fans are rabid about cycling–the U.S. cycling fan contigent is also not insignificant in terms of numbers, despite American TV’s apparent belief to the contrary–and winning the Tour is the greatest and most difficult of all cycling events.

Armstrong’s dominance of his sport over the period of time, especially the (so far) 6 tours 1999-2005, is unprecedented by an American in cycling, and unmatched by any other athlete in that time period, including Tiger Woods, who has not been as consistently and comparably dominant.

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1985-1995 - Wayne Gretzky