Most Decorated Sportsmen from your country

[Rick]

Andy Carroll

[Beelzebub]

Abdul Khaliq- The flying bird of Asia. Fastest Asian athelete of his time and was regarded among the top ten in his prime.

Shame he never got much professional oppotunities but proved himself in little he got.

[Beelzebub]

Shahid Afridi-The mans vintage

 

[RandoEFC+]

From the Isle of Man, Mark Cavendish is the only real big name, successful in the Tour de France, former cycling World Champion and Sports Personality of the Year.

We also have Peter Kennaugh, another cyclist who was part of an Olympic Team Pursuit gold medal team.

[Toinho]

21 hours ago, Harry said:

Donald Bradman. Peerless cricketer

Rod Laver. One of the great tennis players. Idol of Federer. Godfather of tennis.

Greg Norman. 

Johnny Warren. Captain Socceroo. Instrumental in getting football taken seriously in Australia. Not a world best but hugely important to Australian football. 

Tim Cahill (biased but i dont care)

Andrew Gaze. The Michael Jordan of Australian basketball. 

Good list.

[Guest]

On 26/08/2017 at 3:29 PM, VanPanna said:

Johan Cruyff - Changed the game of football to what we see today.

Fanny Blankers-Koen -  Best Dutch women's Athlete of all time. 

Raymond Van Barneveld - started the Darts revolution in Holland, there wouldn't be a Michael Van Gerwen without him. 

I remember when the world championship was dominated by english players.  But you guys have potentially overtaken us now. Taylor was amazing but when you look at how much darts has improved even is he doesn't win as much van Gerwen could be better 

[Spike]

Margeret Court

Shane Warne

Dawn Fraser

Ken Rosewall

[Faithcore]

Fritz Walter

Max Schmeling

Michael Schumacher

Dirk Nowitzki

[Asura]

apart from those added above by my fellow countrymen, I would like to add 

Dravid - To me he is a lot more important and greater player than Sachin (but that debate is for some other time) and coming to legacy wise, he is a national coach contender and is already nurturing the U19 team. He was the first ever foreign cricket to present the Sir Donald Bradman's oration. 

Baichung Bhutia - When someone talks about Indian football he is the first person that pops into the minds, so I dont have to discuss anything about his legacy.

IM Vijayan - Another football player from the past who was considered as the greatest football legend of India, never saw him play though

Viswanathan Anand - Chess Genius 

 

[Guest]

6 hours ago, Asura said:

apart from those added above by my fellow countrymen, I would like to add 

Dravid - To me he is a lot more important and greater player than Sachin (but that debate is for some other time) and coming to legacy wise, he is a national coach contender and is already nurturing the U19 team. He was the first ever foreign cricket to present the Sir Donald Bradman's oration. 

Baichung Bhutia - When someone talks about Indian football he is the first person that pops into the minds, so I dont have to discuss anything about his legacy.

IM Vijayan - Another football player from the past who was considered as the greatest football legend of India, never saw him play though

Viswanathan Anand - Chess Genius 

 

Why is it that you guys don't do better at football mate? Is itbecause of resources? From what I have read football is the second most popular sport in India?

[Asura]

4 hours ago, Gunnersauraus said:

Why is it that you guys don't do better at football mate? Is itbecause of resources? From what I have read football is the second most popular sport in India?

we are bad in almost every sport except maybe cricket and the reasons are plenty. Fans arent interested in any of them so generally the revenue is going to be very low and the government (or sports boards) doesnt encourage any other sport as they will have to spend a lot of money in the grass roots level and they instead try to milk the cash cow that is cricket. 

It looks like football is the second most popular sport in India only because people follow the PL, Liga and other european leagues, the I league games are almost empty in most stadiums except for a very few areas and without the encouragement from the fans locally (both money and atmosphere wise) nothing is going to improve. For example: An average football lover back home will be happy to spend 2000 rupees and buy a foreign club jersey but will not be interested to go watch their local small club play live for 50-100 rupees a match.

I will let @IgnisExcubitor and @Mel81x add more points that I may not know of

[IgnisExcubitor]

5 hours ago, Gunnersauraus said:

Why is it that you guys don't do better at football mate? Is itbecause of resources? From what I have read football is the second most popular sport in India?

Apart from the points @Asura presented, we are also not the most physically robust, something which is needed in football.

But times are changing. ISL is popular and there are talks to merge the main I-League with it. Popularity of football is at its highest and we will see more youngsters taking it up. Major European and South American clubs have opened academies in here.

If the work continues then I can see us producing a crop of quality players, capable of qualifying for the WC or at least being in the right mix in couple of decades. But we have to be patient.

On a side note, I wonder how things would been for Indian football had we not refused to play in the 1950's WC. We had a decent footie team which performed well in 1948 Olympics.

[Eco]

Freddy Adu

[Asura]

2 minutes ago, IgnisExcubitor said:

Apart from the points @Asura presented, we are also not the most physically robust, something which is needed in football.

But times are changing. ISL is popular and there are talks to merge the main I-League with it. Popularity of football is at its highest and we will see more youngsters taking it up. Major European and South American clubs have opened academies in here.

If the work continues then I can see us producing a crop of quality players, capable of qualifying for the WC or at least being in the right mix in couple of decades. But we have to be patient.

On a side note, I wonder how things would been for Indian football had we not refused to play in the 1950's WC. We had a decent footie team which performed well in 1948 Olympics.

Also one more thing I observed a lot with our folks is no one gives a damn about the sport actually, its always about the personnel. No one really went mad about Badminton (except a very few true fans of the sport) until PV Sindhu won the medal recently, and once that happened many joined the bandwagon but none of them really cares for any upcoming youngsters. Its the same thing with the government as they wont provide any good funds and facitilites to develop the upcoming players but will shower the winners with gold and money only because they won a medal. How are the many talented players going to win something if they dont have the proper platform. In case of PV Sindhu, she apparently comes from a decently well off family and they could afford all the facilities but what about 1000s of others who cant afford them but have great talent. 

I personally dislike ISL, its nothing but a flashy and glitter filled stupid tournament but at the same time something is better than nothing and I hope it ignites the passion amongst the locals about their home town clubs. Most of the people who watch ISL is because of SRK, Ganguly, John Abraham etc being part of the ownership of their respective clubs. I wish to see sold out stadiums for I league in future.

[IgnisExcubitor]

ISL is not perfect and tries to ape IPL, but it has brought in sponsors,which are important to these players, and crowds. 

Look at how huge Kabbadi has become. As annoying as things around ISL can be, I personally think it will be of great benefit to Indian football.

[Berserker]

There's so many, here's those i can remember:

Football: Messi, Maradona

Tennis: Vilas, Del Potro

Women's Tennis: Gabriela Sabatini

Basketball: Ginobili, Scola

Formula 1/Auto Racing: Fangio the GOAT

Taek-wondo men:  Sebastian Crismanich

Taek-wondo women: Paula Pareto

Women's Hockey: Luciana Aimar also the GOAT

Polo: Adolfo Cambiasso the GOAT

Voleyball: Milinkovic, Facundo Conte Sir

Boxing: Carlos Monzon, Pascual Perez, there's also Bonavena who managed to throw Muhammad Ali to the floor and only lost to him by points fighting abroad.

Women's Boxing: Locomotora Castro and Tigresa Acuña, also the greatest.

[Dickie]

Michael Phelps- Greatest Swimmer and Olympian of all time end of story good bye

Michael Jordan- Greatest Basketball player of all time 

Tom Brady- Because Tom Brady

Babe Ruth - Greatest baseball players of all time

Tiger Woods- He's lost it a bit but in history

Muhammed Ali- Best Boxer in history hands down

Serena Williams- Best Female Tennis player of all time

 

This list can go on forever but I'll leave it at that for now.

[Mel81x+]

15 hours ago, Asura said:

It looks like football is the second most popular sport in India only because people follow the PL, Liga and other european leagues, the I league games are almost empty in most stadiums except for a very few areas and without the encouragement from the fans locally (both money and atmosphere wise) nothing is going to improve. For example: An average football lover back home will be happy to spend 2000 rupees and buy a foreign club jersey but will not be interested to go watch their local small club play live for 50-100 rupees a match.

I will let @IgnisExcubitor and @Mel81x add more points that I may not know of

The problem with football here isn't just the viewership its how disparate it used to be and how some cities had it going for them so much better than others. That's changing now and the I-League's combination with the ISL imo is a bad idea because I hate it when you have to take something that is a proper league and merge it with some cash-cow showdown that honestly no one even cares that much for anymore. I wanted the reverse with  a better transfer/inclusion policy on players from other leagues coming to play in the I-League because it would have improved the sport so much more.

Look at BFC this year and the Asia Cup? A few years ago if you'd told me that going to the local stadium to watch football was going to be exciting I'd have laughed. Granted its never a full-house but the fans who do come make up for it in more ways than one and the football is getting so much better everyday. 

As for why we don't do well at the national level? There are many reasons and I think the biggest one is lack of change and discipline. I remember a Dutch coach saying that there is talent it just needs proper nurturing and the players need to understand how nutrition, training and understanding the game will go a long way to helping India get better at the world stage. Did anyone heed his advice? Nope. I'd like to see us play internationally at a WC and it may come in my lifetime(I hope) but we have a long way to go before we're close to where we need to be to get out of our qualifiers.

[Tommy]

Motorsports: 

Michael Schumacher

Sebastian Vettel

Basketball: 

Dirk Nowitzki

Tennis:

Boris Becker

Steffi Graf

Boxing:

Max Schmeling

Biathlon:

Magdalena Neuner

Ski jumping:

Sven Hannawald

Ice hockey:

Uwe Krupp