Cycling: Most important athlete of all-time?

There was an interesting read in playboy's june issue where they interviewed Lance Armstrong, mentioning him as possibly being the most important athlete of all-time. I guess I never really thought of him like that before, but after reading through, this guy overcame 12 tumors, goes on to win the Tour de France 6 times in a row, and helped raise close to $40 million for cancer by selling those simple yellow bracelets for $1 each...he has my vote.

Just wondering what everyone else's opinion is?

Chris P.


[Edited on 5/10/05 by jedione12]

lance would be a strong pick and at or near the top of anyones list, if i had to choose i think i would go with Ali or Pele for their influences on sports and the world as a whole
good question and welcome to the site

the 3 mentioned above are very important, but you should also include Jesse Owens, Jim Thorpe, and jackie Robinson on the list, I would think.

Can we build a top 10 list?

BTW, welcome to your new home on the web, jedione12!

jesse owens and jackie robinson are great choices, not so sure jim thorpe belongs though

Maybe not so much for his off the field life, but he did play many different sports.

anothe rfigure to consider would be that golf woman from the '30s, Babe soemthing I believ her name was

was i tbabe diedrickson or something like that...as far as golfers go how about arnold palmer, he did more to popularize walking around all day than anyone else

We were close, tj, it's Babe Didrikson. The reason I mention her is how she mastered many sports, not just golf. CNN-SI ranked her number 2 behind Jackie Joyner-Kersee in a list of the 100 greatest female athletes. - LINK

As for Palmer, he was pretty much stictly golf. And walking,