Greatest Sports Performance of all time

[Jedite]

YouTube - Secretariat Triple Crown Winner: Belmont Stakes


Nuff said. That IMO is the greatest Performance in any sport. If you want a more indepth look at Secretariat try and catch the SportCentury special on him, or just look up his Wiki.


Sure he might not have been human, but it was the kind of performance, that to this day after watching it well over 100 times still brings gushbumps, it is just amazing.

[Grimmlokk]

Jeff Gordon's car was amazing in 1998. Watching that majestic vehicle round the track was inspiring.

Feh. Can't really think of one thing.

Mark Spitz in '72 comes to mind. 7 Golds? Crazy.

Jim Thorpe's career. Double gold in Pentathalon/Decathalon at the olympics then a hall of fame football career in college and the pros.

Edwin Moses winning 122 consecutive races(Hurdles).

Obviously my mind immediately goes to the Olympics. Not even sure why. Carl Lewis in '84 was amazing, but partially because that's the first Olympics I was old enough to remember.

Michael Johnson in '96 would be the last one I cared about watching. 19.32 second 200 meter. Fucking amazing. .31 faster than the next closest time still to this day. Absolutely nuts.

All the doping allegations and shit make it hard to say Lance Armstrong. Plus he pretty much shut it down for the rest of the year and only got up for the Tour deFrance. Which is great and all, but makes it seem like he could have done more.

Finally, Dave Winfield=D Not really for what he did, just for the fact he was drafted into 4 different pro leagues. MLB, NFL(despite not playing college football), NBA, and the ABA. 3 different sports.

[Iadien]

Secretariat's race is definitely one of the best. Sham ripped two teeth out at the gate and still has the second fastest time at the Kentucky Derby. Great race!

[Jedite]

Yeah its kinda sad for Sham really, because any other year he would have had the Derby record time and won the Triple Crown, then again maybe Secretariat pushed him as he pushed Big Red.

[Shoeby]

Ya know, I never really appreciated Secretariat until I saw that clip(He was a little before my time). Thanks for posting that, it was pretty fucking amazing.

I'd like to nominate the 2004 Boston Red Sox ALCS (and World series) performance. Being down 3 games to 0 to the stinkin' Yankees, and after a particularly brutal drubbing in game 3 (19 - 8), being down by a run in the bottom of the 9th of game 4 and tying the game off the Yankees shutdown closer Mariano Rivera, and eventually winning Game 4 in the 12th, Scoring 2 in the 8th of Game 5 to send it to extra innings and win in 14. Game 6, Schilling's bloody sock of infamy, Game 7 so fired up jumping out to a 7 - 0 lead after 2 innings. Such an incredible emotional high, no wonder they fucking steamrolled the cardinals in the series. Now that shit gives me chills.

[Gigfc]

R.I.P Barbaro, R.I.P.

Such a beautiful animal..

[cdyhybrid]

Flu Game/100 points

/thread

[Thorpe]

NBA.com: Wilt Scores 100!

ESPN Classic - Larsen perfect in Game 5 of '56 Series

[Eomer]

Lots I can think of in hockey, but Messier in '94 guaranteeing that the Rangers would come back and force a game 7 against the Devils in the Conference Final, then going out and scoring a hat trick.

Mark Messier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Messier was already known as a hockey superstar, but the birth of the Messier legend came as a New York Ranger in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals against the rival New Jersey Devils. Down 3-2 in the best of seven series, Messier confronted the NYC media and publicly guaranteed a Game 6 victory. Knowing full well the implications of his remarks, he backed up his promise by scoring a natural hat trick in the third period which helped the Rangers erase a two-goal deficit. The Rangers went on to win the series and the Stanley Cup (with Messier scoring the Cup winning goal in game 7) — their first in 54 years.

[Jedite]

Originally Posted by Shoeby

Ya know, I never really appreciated Secretariat until I saw that clip(He was a little before my time). Thanks for posting that, it was pretty fucking amazing.

I'd like to nominate the 2004 Boston Red Sox ALCS (and World series) performance. Being down 3 games to 0 to the stinkin' Yankees, and after a particularly brutal drubbing in game 3 (19 - 8), being down by a run in the bottom of the 9th of game 4 and tying the game off the Yankees shutdown closer Mariano Rivera, and eventually winning Game 4 in the 12th, Scoring 2 in the 8th of Game 5 to send it to extra innings and win in 14. Game 6, Schilling's bloody sock of infamy, Game 7 so fired up jumping out to a 7 - 0 lead after 2 innings. Such an incredible emotional high, no wonder they fucking steamrolled the cardinals in the series. Now that shit gives me chills.

You should watch all 3 races from the derby that year. Each one had a pretty amazing performance from Big Red.

Heres a nice little tidbit of info from his win at the Kentucky Derby

"A lesser-known but perhaps more amazing accomplishment of his took place in that year's Derby. On his way to a still-standing record time in that race (1:59 2/5), he achieved the unheard-of feat of "negative splitting", running each quarter-mile (402 m) segment faster than the one before it. The successive quarter-mile times were: 25 1/5, 24, 23 4/5, 23 2/5 and 23.

"

[Burkex]

First off, I don't even think Horse Racing or Car Racing qualify as sports, so I wouldn't say they were the greatest sports performance of all time. Yes they were good accomplishments but it is a car and a horse.

Now I suppose you are talking about individual performances in Sports and not whole teams, right?

If that is the case then my top picks are the following:

Doug Flutie in the Orange Bowl vs Miami his pass completion, rusing yards, passing yards, and TD's were insane that game (All his stats basically) plus that hail mary pass was legendary, he basically won that game by himself

Or Christian Laettner's game in Duke vs Kentucky in the final 4 he didn't miss a shot all game (10 of 10 from the field and 10 of 10 from the free throw line) including the buzzer beater in double OT in the greatest college basketball game ever played

Or Vince Young in the National Championship Rose Bowl game vs USC- 467 total yards & 4TD's

Or Wilt scoring 100 points in a single game

Or Cal Ripkens consecutive games played streak

Or Jamal Lewis's 295 rushing yards ( A NFL Record) & 2 TD's in a single game

Or Don Larsen's Perfect Game in the 1956 World Series Game 5

Or Jesse Owens in the olympics winning 4 gold medals and breaking 3 world records

[Bottle]

Originally Posted by Eomer

Lots I can think of in hockey, but Messier in '94 guaranteeing that the Rangers would come back and force a game 7 against the Devils in the Conference Final, then going out and scoring a hat trick.

Mark Messier - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

That was awesome. Three other hockey moments standout for me and two were before my time. As far as great performances go. I've always been impressed with team sports where a single player completely dominates the game.

Rocket Richard against Boston in the Stanley Cup finals. He took a dirty hit that gave him a massive concussion. Came back into the game in the third and single handedly won the game. The picture of him with black eyes and blood on his sweater shaking hands with the Boston goaltender with the broken nose is one of the great sport pictures of all time and really tells you what hockey is all about.

Canada/U.S.S.R. 72 super series. What the Canadian team did in those last three games gives me goose bumps. That was very much an us vs. them series and transcended the sport into the realms of politics.

Gretzky in the 93 playoffs. He single-handedly beat the Leafs in the conference finals. That was the best individual performance I've ever seen in a hockey game(s)

On Edit. The talk that Fedor Emileanenko has something like a 440-0 record when you count his Sambo competitions is pretty jaw dropping as well.

[Banal]

Miracle on Ice - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[Grimmlokk]

Originally Posted by Burkex

First off, I don't even think Horse Racing or Car Racing qualify as sports, so I wouldn't say they were the greatest sports performance of all time. Yes they were good accomplishments but it is a car and a horse.

Just to be extra clear I was joking about Jeff Gordon's car giving the best performance=P Not sure how that could have been mistaken, but I was just showing my disdain for the horse pick. Might as well nominate a frisbee dog or something.

How about Harvey Haddix pitching a perfect game for 12 innings. Then losing it and the game in an eventual 1 hit 1-0 13 inning loss. Greatest game ever pitched.

[Thorpe]

Originally Posted by Grimmlokk

How about Harvey Haddix pitching a perfect game for 12 innings. Then losing it and the game in an eventual 1 hit 1-0 13 inning loss. Greatest game ever pitched.

I forgot about that. I miss the old days when pitchers on a whole weren't pussies.

If we are talking about extended periods of time, like a players performance during an entire series, I vote for Babe Ruth and his entire career. Not only did the guy dominate the sport as a hitter, he started his career as a left handed pitcher and excelled at that position as well.

Babe Ruth's Pitching Stats