Aussies NBC Sports 100 Greatest Olympians

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ozgamer

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How old is Joe Posnanski? If he is talking about an Olympic career then Dawn, Murray Rose, Shirley Strickland, Petria Thomas, Susie O'Neill, and Keiran Perkins had a greater career than Freeman. Loved her win in Sydney and 400m in Atlanta but as a big athletics fan, Strickland had a greater career than Freeman.
 

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63. Kristin Otto, East Germany, Swimming

The first woman to win six gold medals in a single Olympics. She did it in 1988, before the Berlin Wall came down, and ever since then many of her teammates admitted to heavily doping with performance enhancing drugs. Otto is strongly believed to have used PEDs herself — the secret police files released in 1994 suggest as much — but she has always denied it. “I worked very hard for those medals … it was not all drugs,” she said.

Also loved this when he has both Carl Lewis and Flo Jo in the top 20 without even mentioning the d word.

I'd have Redpath a little higher too
 
iluvparis said:
Also loved this when he has both Carl Lewis and Flo Jo in the top 20 without even mentioning the d word.

I'd have Redpath a little higher too
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Why would you even have a drug cheat in a list like that?
 
iluvparis said:
63. Kristin Otto, East Germany, Swimming

Otto is strongly believed to have used PEDs herself — the secret police files released in 1994 suggest as much — but she has always denied it. “I worked very hard for those medals … it was not all drugs,” she said.

Also loved this when he has both Carl Lewis and Flo Jo in the top 20 without even mentioning the d word.

I'd have Redpath a little higher too
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This was an interesting Freudian slip
 
Betty Cuthbert is a glaring omission. (I bet Wilma Rudolph is in - oh, look - number 12).

The list is rubbish - it's based purely on 'celebrity' factor, and US recognition - example, it includes Eric The Eel (really!) and the guy from Chariots of Fire (because that was a cool movie, right?). Dorandro Pietri? It is an NBC list, so the 'backstory' is important.

It lists the Basketball Dream Team. Why not the Hungarian Sabre Team that won the Olympic gold 7 times in a row? (Rudolf Karpati won the individual sabre twice, and was a member of 4 gold-medal teams, if you want to focus in just one person). Of course, the US doesn't do sabre (but they do synchronised swimming and beach volleyball, so we get those).
 
Almost 20% are track or track & field, as are 6 of the top 10. Let's just say the US are somewhat athletics-centric.
 
Goodo73 said:
Almost 20% are track or track & field, as are 6 of the top 10. Let's just say the US are somewhat athletics-centric.
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It's more that, athletics is the fundamental sport that others have followed in one way or another since 776BC, not just since 1896, its the fundamental sport of the Olympics, it has more events that any other sport, it always has had, it draws the biggest crowds of any Olympics, it gets the most media coverage of any single sport, and of the around 4,800 events since 1896, about 930 have been in athletics and the Yanks have won about 320 of those 930 events, so given it is a list put together by a US based TV station who sees itself as the US Olympic network, I'm not sure what else you would expect.
 
RussellEbertHandball said:
It's more that, athletics is the fundamental sport that others have followed in one way or another since 776BC, not just since 1896, its the fundamental sport of the Olympics, it has more events that any other sport, it always has had, it draws the biggest crowds of any Olympics, it gets the most media coverage of any single sport, and of the around 4,800 events since 1896, about 930 have been in athletics and the Yanks have won about 320 of those 930 events, so given it is a list put together by a US based TV station who sees itself as the US Olympic network, I'm not sure what else you would expect.
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I think you just justified my comment
 

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And Abebe Bikila and Waldemar Cierpinski, both of whom won the marathon twice while we are at it. Or what of Laszlo Papp three golds for boxing or John Davis and Vasili Alexsayev both double gold in weightlifting. The list seems to have been done on reputations (some earned in post olympic careers) rather than on what the people have done at the olympics !
 
troybe said:
Andrew Hoy, another unsung Olympian misses out. 3 Gold medals. Maybe BigFooty need to do a definitive Top 50
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Timeline? Alll time or since 1960?

1. Michael Phelps
2. Steve Redgrave
3. Lasse Viren
4. Mark Spitz
5. Birgitt Fischer

Ian Thorpe highest Aussie
 
troybe said:
Why 1960? why not All-Time
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More to separate Modern v All Time.

Happy to do an all time top 5 but Phelps is still number 1

1. Phelps
2. Paavo Nurmi
3. Mark Spitz
4. Aladar Gerevich
5. Birgit Fischer

Weighted towards longevity. All Summer. Weighted for Gold Medals.
 
How Fraser missed is beyond me, also not sold on many of them. Athletes that are known to of been drug cheats should be excluded, so Carl Lewis is out, twice failed and USOC covered it up. I heard Linford Christie talk once about drugs and he said that from the mid 70s to mid 90s everyone (men & women) who won a sprinting medal at Olympics or World Championship was on drugs. He reckoned you'd probably be able to count on one hand the number of clean athletes who made finals in the 100m & 200m over that time. Swimming was no doubt very similar.
 
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