Greatest sportsman of each test country

Pakistan: Jahangir Khan(Squash)
Australia: Don Bradman(cricket)?

Rest:?????

England: far too many to mention.

JKLever wrote:England: far too many to mention.

There's probably no other country that attempts to compete seriously (with a public and media that demands success) in so many sports. Perhaps that's why we're not the absolute best at any of them, unless you count snooker and darts! Picking one individual is difficult, hard to argue with Steve Redgrave's achievements I suppose even though it's something of a minority sport that he competed in.

For NZ I guess it would have to be a rugby player, not sure who is the highest regarded of their rugby legends in their own country.

West Indies only exists as a "country" for cricket purposes of course, but from the islands that make it up I guess other than cricket it's the sprinters that dominate, Usain Bolt must be close to that title already.

Kristie something(swimming) for ZIM?

...or Andy Flower?

PlanetPakistan wrote:Kristie something(swimming) for ZIM?

...or Andy Flower?

Kirsty Coventry is the swimmer, she's won most if not all of Zimbabwe's Olympic medals in recent years!

Does Bangladesh have any major sports other than cricket? I suspect for Sri Lanka you can't look beyond Chuckali anyway...

beamer wrote:

JKLever wrote:England: far too many to mention.

There's probably no other country that attempts to compete seriously (with a public and media that demands success) in so many sports. Perhaps that's why we're not the absolute best at any of them, unless you count snooker and darts! Picking one individual is difficult, hard to argue with Steve Redgrave's achievements I suppose even though it's something of a minority sport that he competed in.

For NZ I guess it would have to be a rugby player, not sure who is the highest regarded of their rugby legends in their own country.

West Indies only exists as a "country" for cricket purposes of course, but from the islands that make it up I guess other than cricket it's the sprinters that dominate, Usain Bolt must be close to that title already.

Agree, though I think we've done rather well given we do as you say have a wide range of sports. Probably best for us to break it down into individual sports.

For England only.

Olympian: Steve Redgrave
Football: Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore
Cricket: Fark, this is difficult. of my lifetime? Ian Botham Otherwise, I guess Wally Hammond?
Rugby: Martin Johnson
Golf: Nick Faldo
Tennis: Fred Perry
Formula 1: Nigel Mansell for me.
Hockey: Sean Kerly
Boxing: Henry Cooper (for popularity rather than results i'd suggest)

Daley Thompson. Owned the decathlon in the 80s.

Also indirectly responsible for breaking thousands of ZX Spectrum keyboards around the world with the release of the "button-basher" Daley Thompson's Decathlon.

Dello wrote:Daley Thompson. Owned the decathlon in the 80s.

Also indirectly responsible for breaking thousands of ZX Spectrum keyboards around the world with the release of the "button-basher" Daley Thompson's Decathlon.

ZXSpectrum...

Points at Dello and laughs.

Beamer is right, it is mostly cricketers with sprinters and footballers mixed in.

Antigua - Curtly Ambrose, Andy Roberts.
Barbados - Malcolm Marshall, Obadele Thompson.
Guyana - Clive Lloyd, Rohan Kanhai, Shiv etc
Jamaica - Usain Bolt, Asafa Powell etc
Trinidad & Tobago - Brian Lara, Dwight Yorke, Ato Boldon.
St Lucia - Darren Sammy?

beamer wrote:

PlanetPakistan wrote:Kristie something(swimming) for ZIM?

...or Andy Flower?

Kirsty Coventry is the swimmer, she's won most if not all of Zimbabwe's Olympic medals in recent years!

Does Bangladesh have any major sports other than cricket? I suspect for Sri Lanka you can't look beyond Chuckali anyway...

yeah she did really well....

South Africa: ???

Who has claims on John Barnes?

I wonder who is the greatest hockey player from Pakistan....

probably Hassan Sardar...

JKLever wrote:

Dello wrote:Daley Thompson. Owned the decathlon in the 80s.

Also indirectly responsible for breaking thousands of ZX Spectrum keyboards around the world with the release of the "button-basher" Daley Thompson's Decathlon.

ZXSpectrum...

Points at Dello and laughs.

Speccy vs C64 was the Blur vs Oasis of the olden days.

I guess you were a C64-er. You have that "vibe" about you.

And that smell...

JKLever wrote:

beamer wrote:

JKLever wrote:England: far too many to mention.

There's probably no other country that attempts to compete seriously (with a public and media that demands success) in so many sports. Perhaps that's why we're not the absolute best at any of them, unless you count snooker and darts! Picking one individual is difficult, hard to argue with Steve Redgrave's achievements I suppose even though it's something of a minority sport that he competed in.

For NZ I guess it would have to be a rugby player, not sure who is the highest regarded of their rugby legends in their own country.

West Indies only exists as a "country" for cricket purposes of course, but from the islands that make it up I guess other than cricket it's the sprinters that dominate, Usain Bolt must be close to that title already.

Agree, though I think we've done rather well given we do as you say have a wide range of sports. Probably best for us to break it down into individual sports.

For England only.

Olympian: Steve Redgrave
Football: Bobby Charlton, Bobby Moore
Cricket: Fark, this is difficult. of my lifetime? Ian Botham Otherwise, I guess Wally Hammond?
Rugby: Martin Johnson
Golf: Nick Faldo
Tennis: Fred Perry
Formula 1: Nigel Mansell for me.
Hockey: Sean Kerly
Boxing: Henry Cooper (for popularity rather than results i'd suggest)

Fark you poms need to get over yourselves . . . Australia could match or better that list (except football, of course, but we've a few other sports we're quite good at) . . . .

Dello wrote:

Speccy vs C64 was the Blur vs Oasis of the olden days.

I guess you were a C64-er. You have that "vibe" about you.

And that smell...

I've got one word to say to you.... SPRITES!

tac wrote:
Fark you poms need to get over yourselves

quite interesting that considering Aussie sporting supremacy is constantly shoved down everyones throats...

JKLever wrote:

Dello wrote:

Speccy vs C64 was the Blur vs Oasis of the olden days.

I guess you were a C64-er. You have that "vibe" about you.

And that smell...

I've got one word to say to you.... SPRITES!

That's a cheap shot. Horace Goes Skiing was one of the very first titles. Of course it looked like it was programmed by a gibbon on a Casio calculator watch.

Later games - Double Dragon, for instance - were so graphically rich that it was like watching real life.

Real life.

JKLever wrote:

tac wrote:
Fark you poms need to get over yourselves

quite interesting that considering Aussie sporting supremacy is constantly shoved down everyones throats...

bullshit, Lever . . . you poms just use the whole "Australians play sport, but we've got kulture" line as a salve to your battered national ego . . .

Now compared to...



So that's Sprites sorted. Don't make me trawl Yootoob for some Rob Hubbard magic...

tac wrote:

JKLever wrote:

tac wrote:
Fark you poms need to get over yourselves

quite interesting that considering Aussie sporting supremacy is constantly shoved down everyones throats...

bullshit, Lever . . . you poms just use the whole "Australians play sport, but we've got kulture" line as a salve to your battered national ego . . .

Uh-huh. You're good at Cricket,Tennis & Swimming. Well done.

As I said above, Lever, I'm sure Oz can pretty much match any list you want to draw up . . . not just in swimming, tennis and cricket . . .

why don't they come up with a new name for Australia the continent or Australia the country?

i am sure it must be quite confusing

tac wrote:As I said above, Lever, I'm sure Oz can pretty much match any list you want to draw up . . . not just in swimming, tennis and cricket . . .

You seem to have got the arse tac. For some strange reason you've equated my list of sportsmen from England in a wide range of sports that we haven't done badly at as a 'Australia are shit at sport' dig

Whatever. Boxing - 4 heavyweight world champs in last 14 yrs, Formula 1 - 3 world champions since the mid 80's, Golf - Faldo - 6 majors
Rugby - in the last 2 world cup finals, knocked Aus out last 3 meetings. Athletics - numerous world & olympic champs since mid 80's. Superbikes - Carl Fogarty 4 times world champion.

JKLever wrote:

tac wrote:As I said above, Lever, I'm sure Oz can pretty much match any list you want to draw up . . . not just in swimming, tennis and cricket . . .

You seem to have got the arse tac. For some strange reason you've equated my list of sportsmen from England in a wide range of sports that we haven't done badly at as a 'Australia are shit at sport' dig

Whatever. Boxing - 4 heavyweight world champs in last 14 yrs, Formula 1 - 3 world champions since the mid 80's, Golf - Faldo - 6 majors
Rugby - in the last 2 world cup finals, knocked Aus out last 3 meetings. Athletics - numerous world & olympic champs since mid 80's. Superbikes - Carl Fogarty 4 times world champion.

Not at all, JK, just saying that Oz can match it with England over the "wide range" of sports you were bragging of . . . seems you've got the hump, but that's just because you're turning into a grumpy old man . . . .