Who Are the Greatest Athletes of All Time (Initial List)

Initial Thought

The following are the contenders that come to mind without me doing any research. Not in any order.

• Simone Biles
• Jim Thorpe
• LeBron James
• Michael Jordan
• Lionel Messi
• Shohei Ohtani
• Floyd Mayweather
• Carl Lewis
• Usain Bolt
• Michael Phelps
• Tom Brady
• Wayne Gretzky
• Jesse Owens
• Deion Sanders
• Bo Jackson
• Bruce Lee 
• Arnold Schwarzenegger
• The Rock (Dwayne Johnson)

First thought is there is a huge America bias in my list. The male bias makes sense for a few reasons: 1) women have been excluded; 2) men are more likely to be hypercompetitive; among a couple other factors.

Other Lists

Here is a 2009 version of my project by Bleacher Report. Here is an associate press book identifying the 100 greatest athletes of the 20th century. Below is ESPN's SportsCentury: Top 50 American Athletes of the 20th Century (Original series). Reddit has a lot of these questions and debates. 

I had GPT format and organize the following information into a table. There is decent overlap with my initial brainstorming above. There are a few athletes I have never heard of before. 

Athlete	Sport / sports	Claim to fame
Michael Jordan	Basketball	Six-time NBA champion and five-time MVP, widely considered the defining basketball player of the modern era.
Babe Ruth	Baseball	Transformed baseball with unprecedented power hitting after also starring as an elite pitcher early in his career.
Muhammad Ali	Boxing	Three-time world heavyweight champion whose boxing greatness, charisma, and political significance made him a global sports icon.
Jim Brown	American football, lacrosse	Dominant NFL running back and elite lacrosse player, often cited as one of the greatest all-around American athletes.
Wayne Gretzky	Ice hockey	NHL’s all-time scoring leader with statistical separation from his peers unmatched in major North American team sports.
Jesse Owens	Track and field	Won four gold medals at the 1936 Berlin Olympics in sprints and long jump, combining athletic dominance with major historical significance.
Jim Thorpe	Track and field, American football, baseball, basketball	Olympic decathlon and pentathlon champion who also played multiple professional sports.
Willie Mays	Baseball	One of baseball’s greatest five-tool players, combining elite hitting, power, speed, defense, and longevity.
Jack Nicklaus	Golf	Won a record 18 men’s major championships and remains the central historical comparison for golf greatness.
Babe Didrikson Zaharias	Track and field, golf, basketball	Olympic track champion and dominant golfer, one of the strongest multi-sport athlete candidates ever.
Joe Louis	Boxing	Long-reigning heavyweight champion whose dominance and cultural importance made him one of boxing’s defining figures.
Carl Lewis	Track and field	Won Olympic golds across sprinting and long jump, giving him one of the broadest track-and-field greatness cases.
Wilt Chamberlain	Basketball, track and field, volleyball	Statistically overwhelming basketball player with rare size, strength, endurance, and broader athletic ability.
Hank Aaron	Baseball	Broke Babe Ruth’s career home run record and combined elite power, consistency, and longevity.
Jackie Robinson	Baseball, football, basketball, track and field	Integrated modern MLB and was also a multi-sport college athlete at UCLA.
Pelé	Soccer / football	Three-time World Cup winner and one of the foundational figures in global soccer greatness debates.
Cristiano Ronaldo	Soccer / football	Elite goal scorer with extraordinary longevity, Champions League dominance, global fame, and massive playing income.
Serena Williams	Tennis	Dominant tennis champion whose power, longevity, and major-title résumé make her one of the strongest individual-sport candidates.
Novak Djokovic	Tennis	Men’s tennis great with the strongest modern résumé by major titles, longevity, and all-surface success.
Jackie Joyner-Kersee	Track and field	Olympic heptathlon and long jump great, combining broad athleticism with elite multi-event dominance.
Bo Jackson	Baseball, American football	Rare modern athlete selected as an All-Star in both MLB and the NFL, though injuries limited longevity.
Deion Sanders	American football, baseball	Hall of Fame NFL cornerback who also had a substantial MLB career, making him one of the best modern two-sport professionals.
Don Bradman	Cricket	Cricket’s greatest statistical outlier, famous for a career Test batting average of 99.94.
Eric Heiden	Speed skating, cycling	Swept all five men’s speed-skating events at the 1980 Winter Olympics, an unmatched single-Games range achievement.
Aleksandr Karelin	Greco-Roman wrestling	Three-time Olympic gold medalist and one of the most dominant wrestlers in modern history.
Tiger Woods	Golf	Transformed modern golf with dominant peak performance, major championships, global fame, and enormous earnings.

What's Next

Next I'm going to cut athletes from the list and or justify their contention for the greatest of all time.