Who is the Most Dominant Athlete of the 21st Century?
There has been a great deal of talk about who is the greatest athlete of the current century. The talking heads at ESPN always scream that it’s LaBron James. James has two NBA titles and four NBA MVP awards. He is certainly the greatest professional basketball player of this century. Floyd Mayweather is without a doubt the greatest fighter of this century. He has never lost a fight. That’s 48-0 there sports fan – 26 of those were knockouts. However some experts claim that Money May has dominated his weight class. He hasn’t dominated the way Mike Tyson did in the heavyweight class. It’s always the “big guy thing”. Tennis player Roger Fedorer has seventeen major titles to his credit- that is more than any other male player. However he has not been consistent on the clay courts. He has never won the French Open and hasn’t won a major title since 2012. Going into the new millennium Tiger Woods would have been the obvious choice. Very few athletes have burst on the scene and dominated as quickly as Tiger Woods did in golf in 1997. Woods looked to be the greatest golfer ever to swing a club. No one had ever seen anything like him as he won golf tournament after tournament. He seemed unstoppable. However the law of averages caught up with him. Marriage troubles, taken in too much of the good life, some injuries that were slow to heal, all left their mark on him and he hasn’t won a major title in even years. He’s not the dominant athlete he once was. Swimmer Michael Phelps could certainly be considered as a dominant athlete. He simply blew his competition out of the water…so to speak, Phelps won 22 Olympic medals, including 18 gold. No Olympian in any sports has come close to that number. Formula 1 driver Michael has seven World Driving Championships 91 wins and 155 podium finishes. No other driver has ever come close to that record in F1. He was so dominant that after he retired at the end of the 2012 racing season he left a vacuum in the sport that has yet to be filled. So where does that leave us? Which is the most dominant? Well there is one athlete we have not mentioned yet and, yes, that athlete could indeed be the most dominant of the 21st century. That particular athlete is Serena Williams. Serena Williams has dominated women’s tennis as no athlete has dominated any sport in the new millennium. She just won her 20th major tournament. She has won Wimbledon five times. She has three French Open titles and six US Open titles. She is third behind Margaret Court, who has 24 and Steffi Graf who has 22. In a short period of time she could be the greatest player male or female in the history of tennis and she certainly is the most dominant athlete of the 21st Century.
The Milwaukee Mile
The ABC Supple Wisconsin 250 was won by Frenchman Sebastien Bourdais last Sunday driving a Dallara Chevy for KV Racing Technology. It was Bourdais second win of the season. The 250 lap event saw Josef Newgarden win his first pole position in a CFH Dallara Chevy and finish in fifth place. His best oval finish this year. Helio Castroneves finished second. Only Mario Andretti has more second place finishes in Indy cars than Helio.
Once again driver Graham Rahal was the top Honda driver with a third place finish and moved into third place in the championship points standings. The race was exciting and well run. There is a good chance that this was the last time Indy cars will run at the track and that is a real shame, with Milwaukee’s one hundred year history of hosting some of the most exciting races in Indy Car history. Fans just haven’t come to watch the race and more importantly television ratings have been abysmal. Lets hope the track that saw Jimmy Clark win his first Indy Car race back in June of 1963. will continue to see racing history be made there.
There are four races left to run in the 2015 series. The next one is on July 18. The Iowa Corn 300 on the Iowa Speedway Oval at Newton Iowa. It’s been announced the city of Boston will host an IndyCar race on Labor Day weekend in 2016 – run on a street course laid out in the middle of the city.
Danica and Dale Jr.
Danica Patrick and Dale Earnhardt Jr. exchanged bumper taps in last Sunday’s Quaker State 400 at the Kentucky Motor Speedway. Earnhardt had breaking issues with his car. He came up quickly behind Danica on lap 206 and could not slow down quickly enough and punted Danicas rear bumper sending her into the retaining wall and spinning in the grass. She was able to return to racing but in a profanity filled tirade on radio with her crew she identified Dale Jr. as the culprit and later got behind him as they were pitting and gave him a bumper tap in return. After the race Danica confronted car owner Dale Jr. and gave him a piece of her mind. She was unavailable for press interviews afterward. Interestingly Dale Jr. is one of Danica’s few friends in the Cup Circuit, Earnhardt said after the race he felt bad about what had happened and that he would never purposely punt Danica because it would draw too much media attention. He also said that he thought Danica should chill out a bit and they could talk things out and go back to their friendly relationship. Oh, by the way Kyle Bush won the race in a runaway.
Danica has yet to come up with a top finish this year. She placed 34th in the Quaker State 400 last Sunday.