Greatest Sportsman of the decade

[PTP]

after last night i want to change my vote to Phil The Power Taylor

[Shaggy]

Yeah but he's a cock, so **** him.

[PTP]

when you are that good you can be a cock can't believe you wanted an aussie to win!

seriously though - i love the darts over new years - perfect tv when you are hungover and chilling out.

[Pablo]

Is it Federer v Woods debate time again!

I still agree with Shaggy. Golf a game where you only have influence over your own performance, so hard to string a run of wins together in comparison with tennis where you always have control of the match you are playing in. You have influence over your opponent at all times, where as in golf you might be having a good round but theres nothing you can do to stop Mickelson or whoever shooting a 61 and blowing you out of the water.

[Reece]

Whenever I hear him speak he doesn't seem particularly humble. I guess many people wouldn't be if they'd achieved what he has but still. Whilst I admire his accomplishments (even though I find Darts utterly utterly dull), I'd still chose someone with some degree of athleticism as my sportsman of the decade. So it's still Federer

[Shaggy]

Is it Federer v Woods debate time again!

I still agree with Shaggy. Golf a game where you only have influence over your own performance, so hard to string a run of wins together in comparison with tennis where you always have control of the match you are playing in. You have influence over your opponent at all times, where as in golf you might be having a good round but theres nothing you can do to stop Mickelson or whoever shooting a 61 and blowing you out of the water.

If golf 'isn't a sport', someone had better tell all those newspaper, website and news editors who see fit to include coverage of it in their sports sections. Oh, and the IOC.

[Scratch]

If golf 'isn't a sport', someone had better tell all those newspaper, website and news editors who see fit to include coverage of it in their sports sections. Oh, and the IOC.

Darts is also included in the Sports section of papers and websites, in which case there is no debate, Phil Taylor is the greatest Sportsman of the decade.

Oh, lets not forget snooker too, another "sport" that isn't recognised as such...the IOC are a bunch of cocks.

[Shaggy]

Darts is also included in the Sports section of papers and websites, in which case there is no debate, Phil Taylor is the greatest Sportsman of the decade.

Yeah, that'll be because it's a sport.

Darts, snooker, whatever, they're all ****ing sports. Anyone trying to claim otherwise is just a pedantic smart arse.

[Guest]

Darts is dull IMO. Golf is a game which demands tremendous skill but can be dull to watch sometimes, in the same league as cycling.

Tennis and Football edges them all for sheer action, that is why you'll see sportsmen from those sports being voted above overs. Still, winning 7 Tour De France is no mean feat. If it has to end in a head to head between Federer and Armstrong, I'd chose Armstrong just because he looks smarter than Fed, who does look a complete idiot sometimes.

[Scratch]

Darts, snooker, whatever, they're all ****ing sports. Anyone trying to claim otherwise is just a pedantic smart arse.

In which case, can we add Phil Taylor...no player has been more dominant in their chosen sport than this man, and that cannot be held to question. Especially considering darts is a sport anyone can play, requiring no expensive equipment so the chances for individuals to pick it up is far greater than in any other sport.

[Shaggy]

The question is "who is the greatest sportsman". Greatness can be defined and measured in ways other than simply success. I completely agree though that no-one has been as dominant as Taylor, and to be world champion at anything fifteen times is remarkable.

[Shaggy]

Is darts really a sport?

Of course it's a sport. Those of us who settled with our consciences on this matter a long time ago have moved on to a whole different discussion. What we are wondering is whether darts might be an art.

Describing Phil “The Power” Taylor the other night, Sid Waddell, the Voice of Darts, said: “Like Picasso with a piece of tungsten.” Well, possibly. At his best. (Picasso's, I mean.) But that debate goes on.

As for the other business - no problem. And if we have nothing but confidence in calling darts a sport, then it's with reason. Things are sport because enough people choose to call them sport - to think of them that way and discuss them as such. To that extent, calling darts a sport is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

In any case, the traditional objections melt away. “But you don't even have to be fit,” people say. Not in the conventional sense, no. And I'll go farther: you can even be fat. But you don't have to be fit to play golf, either, and no one ever says that Lee Westwood isn't svelte enough to be a sportsman.

You will need an eagle eye for darts, though, and a steady arm. It's a kind of fitness, and it comes only with practice. (Thrown many 180s recently?) And you'll do some walking - as much as 25 kilometres during a tournament, according to some rather hurt and defensive research conducted with pedometers. Olympic archers don't even have to retrieve their own arrows.

And if you're worried about the drinking, then may we point out that your resistance to the seriousness of darts is probably founded on a 30-year-old Not The Nine O'Clock News sketch. The irony being that you can't really play darts when drunk. Or at least you can't really play darts well when drunk. This is not to say that darts players don't drink. It just happens that a number of leading darts players - and this would be true for any part of the sport's professional-era history - happen to be just as good at drinking as they are at darts.

In truth, what most professional darts players put away pales into insignificance beside the weekly consumption of the average rugby player or cricketer. The difference is that, in the case of rugby and cricket the person doing the drinking is more likely to be middle class, and the subject of middle-class people drinking always plays better, for some reason, than the subject of working-class people drinking.

What's not sporting? It's gladiatorial, character-led, highly skilled and (sorry again, archery - and also county cricket), it attracts spectators. They're not busy wondering whether it's sport. They're too busy watching the darts and feeling the sweat on their palms.

So, inevitably, we move on to other considerations. At Ally Pally recently, Dave Lanning, another of the great darts commentators, was wondering why we haven't yet seen “Phil Taylor: The Musical”. Now there's a question worth asking.

[Guest]

I think it's a completely pointless debate IMO, even though we can take into consideration the relative merits of someone winning many titles, championships etc ... The competition in one specific era cannot be compared to one in another era, this is impossible.

For instance, take Rod Laver in Tennis. If he played in the 'Federer era' and with better equipment, such as a better racquet, Tennis court etc ..., who knows what he could have achieved?

You'd have to define 'greatness' too, and apportion to it some specific parameters from which you can judge sportsmen throughout various disciplines. Until then, it's a basically pointless and impossible exercise.

[PTP]

I think it's a completely pointless debate IMO, even though we can take into consideration the relative merits of someone winning many titles, championships etc ... The competition in one specific era cannot be compared to one in another era, this is impossible.

For instance, take Rod Laver in Tennis. If he played in the 'Federer era' and with better equipment, such as a better racquet, Tennis court etc ..., who knows what he could have achieved?

You'd have to define 'greatness' too, and apportion to it some specific parameters from which you can judge sportsmen throughout various disciplines. Until then, it's a basically pointless and impossible exercise.

****ing hell mate, it was only meant to be a bit of fun!

[dww]

****ing hell mate, it was only meant to be a bit of fun!

Yes but we all knew that idea wouldn't last. Now we have descended into the pit of despair that is the 'what counts as a sport debate' I think anything else counts as an improvement.