The World's Best Sportspeople
I read or watch something. I have an idea. That idea begets a new one. Often then, I confuse myself, stall myself because the interlocking ideas become too big for me, see the flaw in my idea, give up.
I was watching the Kazahstani middleweight Gennady Golovkin batter Martin Murray (the 2nd or 3rd best middleweight in the world) last week, and it was suddenly clear to me that, though it might not yet be true on acclaim, wealth, status, achievement, Golovkin was, right now, one of the very very best sportspeople in the world. He was at a level of highly skilled, effective, brave but brutal utter dominance in his realm which few achieve. There is not, right now, a cat in hell's chance of another middleweight boxer beating him.
So, I, being who I be, naturally thought "I can do a list of who, right now, are the best sportspeople in the world. I've compared across sports before, that's ok. I'm going to really try to focus on the now, rather than legacy or years of achievement, making myself a hostage to fortune, I'm just going to capture a moment."
Then my brain, which believes itself progressive and right-on as well as fair and honest (well, of course it does) got to thinking about women in sport, and that immediately became the bigger issue. I've already done a list of the Top 200 British Sportspeople of All Time which is statistically dominated by men. The excuse there is history, the comparative lack of opportunities across any number of sports for women. What excuse now for writing a list dominated by men? Women play everything now, don't they? Which side am I on?
So this is what's delaying me. A lot of nonsense is spoken about sport, a lot of nonsense is spoken about equality, but it's always important to remember that 99% of the nonsense every spoken about equality of any sort is by stupid, threatened white men. With sport that figure is down to about 90%. Mainly because of Garth Crooks ...
So, you see, different people have things that are important to them, which exemplify what they care about and how they care about the world, so for me, a simple list of who are the greatest sportspeople in the world becomes a profound consideration of civil rights and of truth.
Sport is unfair for women. But that doesn't mean that 50% of the greatest sportspeople in the world are women.
Let's start with the barest, bluntest, truth. You heard Patricia Arquette at the Oscars, right? Equal pay for women, prompted, people imagine, by the "hacked Sony" revelation that Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence got less than Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale for 'American Hustle'.
Hollywood is a hypocrite. It pays women less than men and patronises minority performers. But it pales next to the sporting world. Of the 100 best paid sportspeople in the world (2014 figures) 3 are women. They're all tennis players and not even in the right order - Maria Sharapova, Li Na, Serena Williams. Li Na's retired now so next year maybe it'll just be 2. It won't get better the further down you go either. Think of all those half-decent Premier League/NBA/MLB players who get light years more than female sporting superstars can even dream of. Of the 5000 best paid sportspeople in the world, how many do you think are women? 50, maybe. 100?
And, here's something funny, when it comes to the "50 Most Marketable Athletes in the World" it's a relatively more palatable 13 out of 50. Hopeful or hypocritical? We'll pay you peanuts but we reckon we can make a bit of money off you ...
So, what I'm saying is, if my list of the greatest sportspeople in the world has more men than women, that doesn't make me the problem.
What am I assessing when I'm judging how good sportspeople are. Broken down to as few factors as possible, I'm plotting some weird kind of graph in my head which considers:
And, also, you throw in the intangibles of the extent to which they are or may be tainted. Lance Armstrong probably was one of the best sportspeople in the world for a decade, but no one's going to put him in any such lists now.
And, looking at those factors, fewer of the best sportspeople in the world are women, for an interlocking web of reasons which may be improving but don't hold your breath.
What is the natural ratio for women compared to men in sport? Of course it varies depending on what the sport involves but if you take a sport where women and men have come fairly close to having the same opportunities, the same funding, the same prestige, the same exposure, the same history for at least quite a lot of decades, namely the 100m running, women are roughly 1/10 worse than men. Usain's doing 9.65ish, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, his female equaivalent (though not quite such a one-off as he) has done 10.7ish. That ratio holds roughly pretty much all the way up the running distances, without even that many anomalies for the unusual East German women of the 1980s. Swimming is not far different, maybe the gap's a tiny bit bigger but not much.
And gradually, over the century, women do nearly all the same disciplines as men in athletics and swimming. It's taken a long time for that to happen and it's still not there. It's still not near it in cycling, in boxing, in almost anything. Hell, it's not there in tennis, is it, where women have won the battle of getting equal prize money at Grand Slam events. Ironically, they get more money for less work (3 sets against 5). It's a nonsense that it's only 3 sets, it's an accepted patronising nonsense.
So, anyway, I felt I had to justify my list, so I've gone on a bit. I get it into my head that if I don't get this kind of list somewhere near right, then no one else will.
I reiterate what I've said elsewhere. I think some sports are worth more than others. I think Ryan Giggs a greater sportsman than Steve Redgrave, because there weren't 100s of millions of children round the world for two decades who grew up dreaming, and with theoretical possibility, of supplanting Steve Redgrave.
So, these are the best sportspeople in the world right now (not in order). Some of them won't be in a year's time, some in a month's time. Some are based, a tiny bit, on conjecture, on what I reckon they'll achieve in the coming months. Achievement matters if it's pretty recent and likely to recur. Eg Usain Bolt hasn't done anything great for over a year, but I think he will next summer. I predict with less confidence the same for Michael Phelps (on the comeback trail), so he does scrape in.
And whose the absolute best? Ronnie the Rocket of course! No. But is anyone else quite so magical ... No, I'd go for Ronaldo, Djokovic, Franklin, Bolt, LeBron James, probably, as the top 5 right now ... but, then, again, if there was, like, a big all-sport Superstars I might go for AB De Villiers, who appears to be the most talented man alive ...
And these were also names that came up. The top name in this list has achieved nothing yet, but barring injury, may become the Number 1 sportswoman in the world (with the best name!)
I was watching the Kazahstani middleweight Gennady Golovkin batter Martin Murray (the 2nd or 3rd best middleweight in the world) last week, and it was suddenly clear to me that, though it might not yet be true on acclaim, wealth, status, achievement, Golovkin was, right now, one of the very very best sportspeople in the world. He was at a level of highly skilled, effective, brave but brutal utter dominance in his realm which few achieve. There is not, right now, a cat in hell's chance of another middleweight boxer beating him.
So, I, being who I be, naturally thought "I can do a list of who, right now, are the best sportspeople in the world. I've compared across sports before, that's ok. I'm going to really try to focus on the now, rather than legacy or years of achievement, making myself a hostage to fortune, I'm just going to capture a moment."
Then my brain, which believes itself progressive and right-on as well as fair and honest (well, of course it does) got to thinking about women in sport, and that immediately became the bigger issue. I've already done a list of the Top 200 British Sportspeople of All Time which is statistically dominated by men. The excuse there is history, the comparative lack of opportunities across any number of sports for women. What excuse now for writing a list dominated by men? Women play everything now, don't they? Which side am I on?
So this is what's delaying me. A lot of nonsense is spoken about sport, a lot of nonsense is spoken about equality, but it's always important to remember that 99% of the nonsense every spoken about equality of any sort is by stupid, threatened white men. With sport that figure is down to about 90%. Mainly because of Garth Crooks ...
So, you see, different people have things that are important to them, which exemplify what they care about and how they care about the world, so for me, a simple list of who are the greatest sportspeople in the world becomes a profound consideration of civil rights and of truth.
Sport is unfair for women. But that doesn't mean that 50% of the greatest sportspeople in the world are women.
Let's start with the barest, bluntest, truth. You heard Patricia Arquette at the Oscars, right? Equal pay for women, prompted, people imagine, by the "hacked Sony" revelation that Amy Adams and Jennifer Lawrence got less than Bradley Cooper and Christian Bale for 'American Hustle'.
Hollywood is a hypocrite. It pays women less than men and patronises minority performers. But it pales next to the sporting world. Of the 100 best paid sportspeople in the world (2014 figures) 3 are women. They're all tennis players and not even in the right order - Maria Sharapova, Li Na, Serena Williams. Li Na's retired now so next year maybe it'll just be 2. It won't get better the further down you go either. Think of all those half-decent Premier League/NBA/MLB players who get light years more than female sporting superstars can even dream of. Of the 5000 best paid sportspeople in the world, how many do you think are women? 50, maybe. 100?
And, here's something funny, when it comes to the "50 Most Marketable Athletes in the World" it's a relatively more palatable 13 out of 50. Hopeful or hypocritical? We'll pay you peanuts but we reckon we can make a bit of money off you ...
So, what I'm saying is, if my list of the greatest sportspeople in the world has more men than women, that doesn't make me the problem.
What am I assessing when I'm judging how good sportspeople are. Broken down to as few factors as possible, I'm plotting some weird kind of graph in my head which considers:
- The extent to which they excel at their given sport
- The level of competition within that sport/How developed that sport is
- How highly they are achieving compared to the level of possible achievement within that sport/discipline
- The range of skill/achievement/effort inherent in that discipline
And, also, you throw in the intangibles of the extent to which they are or may be tainted. Lance Armstrong probably was one of the best sportspeople in the world for a decade, but no one's going to put him in any such lists now.
And, looking at those factors, fewer of the best sportspeople in the world are women, for an interlocking web of reasons which may be improving but don't hold your breath.
What is the natural ratio for women compared to men in sport? Of course it varies depending on what the sport involves but if you take a sport where women and men have come fairly close to having the same opportunities, the same funding, the same prestige, the same exposure, the same history for at least quite a lot of decades, namely the 100m running, women are roughly 1/10 worse than men. Usain's doing 9.65ish, Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce, his female equaivalent (though not quite such a one-off as he) has done 10.7ish. That ratio holds roughly pretty much all the way up the running distances, without even that many anomalies for the unusual East German women of the 1980s. Swimming is not far different, maybe the gap's a tiny bit bigger but not much.
And gradually, over the century, women do nearly all the same disciplines as men in athletics and swimming. It's taken a long time for that to happen and it's still not there. It's still not near it in cycling, in boxing, in almost anything. Hell, it's not there in tennis, is it, where women have won the battle of getting equal prize money at Grand Slam events. Ironically, they get more money for less work (3 sets against 5). It's a nonsense that it's only 3 sets, it's an accepted patronising nonsense.
So, anyway, I felt I had to justify my list, so I've gone on a bit. I get it into my head that if I don't get this kind of list somewhere near right, then no one else will.
I reiterate what I've said elsewhere. I think some sports are worth more than others. I think Ryan Giggs a greater sportsman than Steve Redgrave, because there weren't 100s of millions of children round the world for two decades who grew up dreaming, and with theoretical possibility, of supplanting Steve Redgrave.
So, these are the best sportspeople in the world right now (not in order). Some of them won't be in a year's time, some in a month's time. Some are based, a tiny bit, on conjecture, on what I reckon they'll achieve in the coming months. Achievement matters if it's pretty recent and likely to recur. Eg Usain Bolt hasn't done anything great for over a year, but I think he will next summer. I predict with less confidence the same for Michael Phelps (on the comeback trail), so he does scrape in.
- Gennady Golovkin (Kazakhstan, Boxing)
- Rory McIlroy (UK, Golf)
- Floyd Mayweather (USA, Boxing)
- Ashton Eaton (USA, Decathlon)
- Missy Franklin (USA, Swimming)
- Tom Brady (USA, American Football)
- LeBron James (USA, Basketball)
- Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka, Cricket)
- Alberto Contador (Spain, Cycling)
- Lionel Messi (Argentina, Football)
- Marianne Vos (Netherlands, Cycling)
- Valerie Adams (New Zealand, Shot Put)
- Mo Farah (UK, Athletics)
- Marc Marquez (Spain, Motorcycle Racing)
- Tony McCoy (Ireland, Horse Racing)
- Ronaldo (Portugal, Football)
- Usain Bolt (Jamaica, Athletics)
- Novak Djokovic (Serbia, Tennis)
- Serena Williams (USA, Tennis)
- Tirunesh Dibaba (Ethiopia, Athletics)
- AB De Villiers (South Africa, Cricket)
- Anthony Davis (USA, Basketball)
- Mike Trout (USA, Baseball)
- Zydrunas Savickas (Lithuania, Powerlifting/Strongman Events)
- Marta (Brazil, Football)
- Renaud Lavillenie (France, Pole Vault)
- Lewis Hamilton (UK, Motor racing)
- Wladimir Klitschko (Ukraine, Boxing)
- Richard Sherman (USA, American Football)
- Rafael Nadal (Spain, Tennis)
- Sarah Storey (UK, Paralympic Cycling)
- Marit Bjoergen (Norway, Cross-country skiing)
- Alan Oliveira (Brazil, Paralympic athletics)
- Katie Ledecky (USA, Swimming)
- Jonny Sexton (Ireland, Rugby Union)
- Manuel Neuer (Germany, Football)
- JJ Watt (USA, American Football)
- Sidney Crosby (Canada, Ice Hockey)
- Mikaela Shiffrin (USA, Skiing)
- Sonny Bill Williams (New Zealand, Rugby union/League/Boxing)
- Kieron Read (New Zealand, Rugby Union)
- Tatyana McFadden (USA, Wheelchair racing)
- Johnathan Thurston (Australia, Rugby league)
- Roger Federer (Switzerland, Tennis)
- Michael Phelps (USA, Swimming)
- Marshawn Lynch (USA, American Football)
- Ronnie O'Sullivan (UK, Snooker)
- Tina Maze (Slovenia, Skiing)
- Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce (Jamaica, Athletics)
- Richie McCaw (New Zealand, Rugby Union)
And whose the absolute best? Ronnie the Rocket of course! No. But is anyone else quite so magical ... No, I'd go for Ronaldo, Djokovic, Franklin, Bolt, LeBron James, probably, as the top 5 right now ... but, then, again, if there was, like, a big all-sport Superstars I might go for AB De Villiers, who appears to be the most talented man alive ...
And these were also names that came up. The top name in this list has achieved nothing yet, but barring injury, may become the Number 1 sportswoman in the world (with the best name!)
- Katarina Johnson-Thompson (UK, Heptathlon)
- Alistair Brownlee (UK, Triathlon)
- Anna Mears (Australia, Cycling)
- Jessica Ennis-Hill (UK, Heptathlon)
- Peyton Manning (USA, American Football)
- Calvin Johnson (USA, American Football)
- Miguel Cabrera (USA, Baseball)
- Sebastian Vettel (Germany, motor racing)
- David Weir (UK, Wheelchair racing)
- Dan Carter (New Zealand, Rugby Union)
- Gareth Bale (UK, Football)
- Clayton Kershaw (USA, Baseball)
- Manny Pacquiao (Philippines, Boxing)
- Chris Froome (UK, Cycling)
- Nairo Quintana (Colombia, Cycling)
- Vincenzo Nibali (Italy, Cycling)
- David Rudisha (Kenya, Athletics)
- Ben Ainslie (UK, Sailing)
- Charlotte Dujardin (UK, Dressage)
- Andres Iniesta (Spain, Football)
- Wilson Kipsang (Kenya, Marathon)
- David Rudisha (Kenya, Athletics)
- Ryan Lochte (USA, Swimming)
- Sun Yang (China, Swimming)
- Sanya Richards-Ross (USA, Athletics)
- Dale Steyn (South Africa, Cricket)
- Mitchell Johnson (Australia, Cricket)
- Leigh Halfpenny (Wales, Rugby)
- Bohdan Bondarenko (Russia, High Jump)
- JJ Watt (USA, American Football)
- Madison Bumgarner (USA, Baseball)
- Kevin Durant (USA, Basketball)
- Arjen Robben (Netherlands, Football)
- Alexander Olevchin (Russia, Ice Hockey)
- Ireen Wust (Netherlands, Speed Skating)
- Inbee Park (South Korea, Golf)
- Viktor Ahn (Russia, Speed skating)
- Peyton Manning (USA, American Football)
- Lin Dan (China, Badminton)
- Rob Gronkowski (USA, American Football)
- Abby Wambach (USA, Football)
- Sally Pearson (Australia, Athletics)
- Maria Sharapova (Russia, Tennis)
- Brodie Retallick (New Zealand, Rugby Union)
- Mutaz Essa Barshim (Qatar, High Jump)
- Adrian Peterson (USA, American Football)
- Kirani James (Bermuda, Athletics)
- Miranda Carfrae (Australia, Triathlon)
- Yaya Toure (Ivory Coast, Football)
- Blake Griffin (USA, Basketball)
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