"Who is GOAT" Introduction: Every sport has its own GOAT

When LeBron James scored his career 38,388th point with a turnaround jumper on February 8, 2023, surpassing the legendary "Skyhook" Abdul-Jabbar, there was a lot of talk about who he and Michael Jordan were GOAT.

Yes, one is the highest mountain in the NBA, 6-time championship + FMVP and countless personal data, symbolizing invincibility.

One is the longest river in the NBA, standing at the top of the league for 20 years, breaking records on time one by one, symbolizing a long history.

They have broadened the dimensions of the NBA and basketball worlds, and everyone can judge the GOAT from their own perspective.

GOAT, Greatest Of All Time, is the ultimate award for a sport in a project.

However, because of the popularity of the NBA in recent years, especially the media rendering, it seems that this has become an exclusive term of the NBA, but if you raise his dimension, you will find that there is a FIBA world outside of him.

There, Oscar (Brazil, World Championship scoring champion), Belov (the Soviet Union, FIBA's greatest player of the 20th century), and Galis (Greece, king of Europe) all seem eligible to compete.

And if you broaden the scope, there are too many players in the history of professional sports in the United States or North America who can wrestle with Michael Jordan, who is regarded as a god in the NBA.

Tom Brady, who retired and returned like Michael Jordan in football, but is also known as GOAT, Gretzky on ice hockey is equivalent to the combination of Jordan and LeBron.

Of course, there is the golf "tiger" who was unmatched by Jordan's commercial value even at his peak, and Ali, the idol revered by all blacks.

Different sports actually have their own GOAT, and you can also think of them as the totem of this sport.

Tencent News|Sports will launch a special program "Who is GOAT". We will spend a month discussing the GOAT in 29 sports, and the whole March of the party will pay tribute to the athletes who have made their names in history.

First, in unpopular projects, there are often real gods

In the vast history of the mainland for 5,000 years, those who can be called "saints" are often great sages who have left their names for thousands of years. Such as Kong Sheng, Book Saint Wang Xizhi, Shi Sheng Du Fu, Painting Saint Wu Daozi and so on. But in the field of sports, only Nie Weiping, the "chess saint" who defeated eight of Japan's top chess players in a row in the 80s and won 11 consecutive victories in two China-Japan Go tournaments.

At that time, he was the enemy of the world, but he was invincible.

But as early as half a century ago, there was a Chinese who crossed the ocean, and in the era when the Chinese land was still bullied, at the age of 19, the innovative layout made all the top Japanese chess players "downgraded" (at that time, the Japanese chess scene was demoted due to too many failures).

He was called "Showa Chess Saint" by the Go kingdom at that time, and his era was named after him, and he was called Chess Saint by chess players all over the world.

His name is Wu Qingyuan.

In the history of modern sports, bulls, odd people, strongmen like this abound.

The Dakar Desert is known as the "Brave's Paradise", or "the Driver's Grave", the world's greatest and most dangerous race that has killed countless riders.

However, there is such a macho man who uses this place as his own back garden. He skateboarded until he was 15 and became a professional motorcyclist as an adult. At the age of 23, he competed in the Dakar Rally for the first time, won the event for the first time at the age of 26, and has been out of control ever since, winning the title six times in eight years.

Then the motorcycle was boring, he switched to the car class, and he became king again, and from 1999 to the present, he has won eight more championships in an environment where most drivers struggle to finish the race.

No one in the world knows Dakar and rally better than he does.

His name was Peter Hansel.

These people, in their own field. It seems that they have long become ascetics who have no opponents, can only constantly challenge themselves and break through the limit, and out of love and even inertia, they have forged legends that future generations can no longer reach.

For example, Isinbayeva, who made pole vaulting incomparably beautiful and broke records in one race,

No one else can ride a bike to catch up with his marathon legend Kipchoge,

Maya Moore, the "champion seeder" who is more dominant than Jordan in the women's basketball court,

The "home run king" on the baseball field, Babe Roose, who is so great that even a single word of his complaint can become a curse, and so on.

Second, those undoubted gods even surpass the influence of the movement itself

The significance of the 2008 Beijing Olympics in sports history was largely overlooked because of our perfect opening ceremony and well-organized organization.

In athletics and swimming, two sports that represent the most basic athletic qualities of human beings, their respective GOATs are crowned.

"American Flying Fish" Phelps won eight gold medals in one fell swoop in Beijing, adding to his six in Athens four years ago, becoming the first in Olympic history with 14 gold medals.

Later, in London and Rio, he won 9 more, and his 23 gold medals in his entire career were far ahead of the whole world, after all, the nearest second place was only 9 gold medals, almost just the production of his one Olympic Games.

Not inferior to him is "Lightning" Bolt, who broke the men's 100m record in 9.69 seconds in the 100-meter dash, which best reflects the limits of human beings, and then set the 200-meter record in 19.30 seconds, creating the great feat of winning the 100m and 200m gold medals and breaking the world record at the same time at the same time in an Olympic Games, and the gold medal in the 4×100m relay is even more logical.

He won a total of 8 Olympic gold medals, as well as the only 9.58 seconds in human history, and the golden age of 100 meters that ruled the 100-meter era in which "running 9.7 seconds may not win".

The gods of such popular projects, their achievements are also easier to remember, and they are symbols of invincibility in their respective fields.

China's Lin Dan completed the "domination mode" of men's badminton in his time. He won his first world championship at the age of 17, won three consecutive titles at the age of 22, won the Olympic title at the age of 25, completed the badminton Grand Slam at the age of 27, defended the Olympic title at the age of 29, and completed the double-lap Grand Slam at the age of 31.

In men's singles, the top badminton event, he is "Michael Lin Jordan".

There is also a career that lasts nearly 27 years, winning 23 Grand Slam women's singles, 14 women's doubles, and singles and doubles all completed Grand Slams (Olympic + four Grand Slams), from Graff to Hingis, Henin, to Wozniak, and to Serena Williams Osaka.

She is like a book that records the development and changes of women's tennis over the past three decades.

And she herself is the brightest page in the book.

3. The great gods who are quarreled and talked about every day and ranked their seats for them

Of course, compared to these lonely and invincible cow people in their respective fields, the fight between various immortals and the fight for "Guan Gong vs. Qin Qiong" through time and space is more exciting.

2022 is a year of reversal and re-ranking of world sports.

With Messi's victory in the World Cup in Qatar, he officially surpassed Cruyff, Beckenbauer, Ronaldo and Zidane, reaching a height comparable to Pele and Maradona.

These two are officially considered by FIFA to be the best of the 20th century, but just 20 years after the 21st century, there is such a genius as Messi.

The three-man battle is much like the NBA's GOAT battle, depending on which one the judges value more than the other.

If the World Cup is considered the most important achievement, then Pele, who has won three World Cups and scored more than 1,000 goals in his career, deserves it.

If you value the influence of football on the world by yourself, Maradona, who has almost become a totem, is more qualified,

If you value the combined achievements of professional clubs and national teams, as well as peak length and height, Messi, who has created an "undefeated era" at Barca, is also true.

The so-called GOAT is different in everyone's heart.

Also when Djokovic won the Australian Open earlier this year, becoming the unprecedented "10" Australian Open title and equalling Nadal in the number of Grand Slams (22), we know that the men's tennis GOAT fight continues.

Yes, Roger's grass (8), Nadal's clay (14), Djokovic's hard court (13), they are legends and symbols of their respective fields. Together, they created a "heyday era of men's tennis" admired by future generations.

As for them, who is the best ever, Who Care?

The GOAT dispute between Hamilton and Schumacher in F1 is also hot.

The two also won seven Drivers' Championships of the Year, but the young Hamilton's 103 race titles had already surpassed the king's 91.

But in the hearts of many old car fans, Schumacher's dominance of the paddock was by no means comparable to Hamilton's, and even if he knew that Hamilton, the "little hairy head" who was once around him, could threaten his GOAT position, maybe like Michael Jordan to come back, instead of obsessed with skiing.

It's just that the kings of F1 seem to have a bleak ending, John Cena died in San Marino, and Schumacher has been sleeping in a hospital bed for ten years because of a skiing accident, and it seems that there is really a strange curse in this.

I sincerely wish Hamilton a safe journey in the rest of his life.

Compared with the invincibility on the sports field, these winners in their respective fields will eventually fall into the dust and return to normal life.

And the legendary story of their "GOAT" is left to the respective fans to discuss.