The other night I was watching the Olympics with a few friends when an interesting conversation came about after we heard the announcer say, “You’re watching the world’s best athletes compete here in Torino.” The statement made us wonder, are Olympians really the world’s best athletes? And, if not, which sport is home to the best all-around athletes?

After debating the topic for nearly half-an-hour, my friends and I narrowed it down to three positions in three different sports. But before I give away which three – and the one I ultimately feel is the most athletically demanding – I feel it’s necessary to fill you in on the criteria we were using, and how we eliminated those we didn’t choose.

First of all, dictionary.com defines an athlete as “a person possessing the natural or acquired traits, such as strength, agility and endurance, that are necessary for physical exercise or sports, especially those performed in competitive contexts.”

It’s important to stress the fact that I’m not going to be discussing which sport has the best athletes overall. No, I’m talking about which position in sports is the most athletically demanding—therefore, the sport with the best athletes.

Since it’s in the world’s spotlight right now, let’s begin with the Olympics. While I have tremendous admiration for the skill and dedication shown by these athletes, I cannot go so far as to say that they display enough athleticism to be considered the world’s greatest athletes. Most Olympic sports of the non-team variety are extremely specialized and technical. They require the athletes to compete in very specific ways, limiting their ability to use sheer athleticism to excel. While Olympians demonstrate impressive focus and intelligence, most don’t do one thing that is quintessential when it comes to the distinction of best athlete—they don’t play with a ball or puck.

Sports that require an athlete to score with a foreign object (such as football, soccer, hockey, basketball, volleyball, water polo, baseball, tennis, lacrosse) are dominated by people with complete command of a versatile array of skills.

As I’m writing this article, I’m watching speed skating and am enjoying every minute of it. But these athletes win on speed, endurance and technique. They aren’t displaying a breathtaking range of motions seen in other sports, let alone hand-eye coordination.

Other events featured in the Olympics — both summer and winter — are also too specialized for consideration. Swimming is an amazing sport, but the range of body motion isn’t there. Runners are also impressive athletes, but all they do is run. The skeleton event in the winter Olympics is crazy, but the skills used in this sport are more a result of practice rather than athletic ability. I think I can speak for all of us when I say how thrilling curling is, but I think it’d be a bit of a stretch to say those sweepers are among the world’s best athletes. And while I think what Lance Armstrong has done has been inspiring on many levels, I don’t think cyclists feature enough diversity in their range of motion.

The best athlete needs to be from a sport that has it all: quickness, agility, speed, strength, hand-eye coordination, endurance, intelligence and mental toughness.

This pretty much leaves us with the team sports and tennis. When I first thought of tennis, I thought that it may, in fact, be the answer to this puzzling question. Yet there was just something I couldn’t put my finger on that was holding me back. I went through the mental checklist. Agility, check. Hand-eye coordination, oh yeah. Endurance, tournaments that feature matches that last upward of two hours every other day, definitely. Then it donned on me—speed! While tennis players are very quick, would you ever think any of them were fast? Like, track fast? Like Michael Johnson in his golden spikes in Atlanta fast? No way.

Rugby lacks the popularity to be considered as having the best athletes. While it may seem biased to say that, it’s true that the world’s best athletes do not play rugby. The world’s best football and soccer players would dominate in rugby.

Hockey players are very good athletes, and the forward position is one of the toughest in sports, but it is on ice (too specialized) and you use a stick instead of your hands (or feet) to score (again, too specialized). Therefore lacrosse can be dismissed for many of the same reasons.

Water polo is unbelievably difficult, but the range of motion is still limited to swim-like moves. It’s doubtful that an elite water polo player would be nearly as successful in ground sports as they are in their own sport (the crossover factor I’ll discuss in a minute).

While volleyball players also play a very hard sport, they don’t actually play against the other players directly—they’re not guarding their opponents on defense like basketball, soccer and football. Plus, it’s just like a discussion of boxers as the world’s best athletes—where’s the speed and running?

The next sport I eliminate may surprise you. The most athletic position on the baseball field is probably the center fielder. They’re typically the fastest players on the team and often flash some serious leather by making ridiculously acrobatic catches. The best baseball player can hit, run, catch, throw and play the game intelligently. Yet baseball lacks direct athlete-to-athlete competition. Two athletes never race to the same spot or try to guard each other in baseball. The whole game is being played as if the ball were some boundary separating the teams from physical contact.

Don’t get me wrong, This is one of the qualities that makes baseball so great but, for the sake of our argument, hurts its case. Think about it. Besides the occasional tag-out or collision on the base paths, when do ballplayers physically play against each other?

Now we’re left with the three sports my friends and I identified that night as having the three best athletes in all of sports: soccer, basketball and football. Specifically, the forward in soccer, the high-flying swingman in basketball and the running back in football.

Make sure to grab the paper next week to see which of these three positions is home to the “best athlete.”

To be continued ...

by: Bryce Plank