Yes both Rossi and Slater have both won 9 world titles… Slater a record 42 WCT wins (versus 33 by Tom Curren), and while Rossi holds the record for 500cc at 77, his 103 race wins are overshadowed by Giacomo Agostini who won 122. And whilst there is little doubt Giacomo would win a race on the bikes of today, he clearly was well ahead of his league at the time he played. However I can’t help but feel that with the proffessional nature of todays sportsman, the heros of yesteryear have (possibly quite rightly) all but been forgotten.

Federer is hard to beat on the Tennis court as he is showing right now against L. Hewitt at the Aus Open, and as Courier has just said he is the most complete player…. and has probably earnt ten times more money in career prizemoney than Slater no doubt… However this is not an argument of richest sportsman, otherwise there wouldn’t be any arguments and as Tiger has shown us, it is more a measure of your marketability than your skill. Many would argue that he is a candidate for best sportsman of all time…. I however (no thanks to rceent events) would argue he is a dick with a big swing.

Then there is Schumacher who also dominated his sport winning 7 world titles and 91 wins and in terms of being a nice guy he has donated 10s of millions of his money to charity…. but i dont think he is the best sportsman of all time.

In terms of the dominance of teh sport on a world wide stage, yes surfing doesn’t attract the attention as clearly it is not a spectator sport, in the same way tennis, football or racing does. But you could easily argue that while there are alot of people who love to watch racing, not many actually take part in it beyond the t.v. and teh odd race. Mainly because it is far too expensive. I am sure many more people surf worldwide than race and more again play soccer (football), cricket and tennis than surf. So to make it in Soccer or Cricket you have to stand out in a much bigger pool of hopefuls, however they are team sports, and it makes it very hard to judge the effect of one player as opposed to the team.

In the end we need to take alot of things into account however I would judge this one purely on how far above average these guys are comared to everyone else in there sport… All the names mentioned above excel in there sport and I believe are the best of all time in there sport. However for me it is Kelly Slater without any doubt. He is so far beyond in the skill level of all the others in the water that it is as though he is 10-20 years ahead of his time. I have seen him do things that seem to defy possibility of physics…. if his surfing ability was looked at as being Holiness he would make the Dalai Lama look almost evil….. nuff said.

Now i will discuss some sportsmen already being discussed here.
Michael Shumacher- In F1 a lot depends on the car package. ferrari is one of the top teams in F1 so it dilutes some greatness of Schumi. He lost to Mika 2 times and also to Alonso. So he may be the best F1 driver but not the best sportsman.
Federer- I think Fedex is the best tennis player ever. however he has ruled in an era of weak tennis players and he has lost to Nadal consistently.
Footballers can not be discussed objectively as it is a team game.
Lance armstrong but for the drugs shadow on him.
Tiger Woods is not consistent enough.
same if apply the above yardsticks for other sportspersons.
Now Rossi has dominated Motogp like no one has dominated any other sport. he has performed on different teams and won championships on these teams. he lost champioship only 2 times in the past 8 years that by only slimmest of margins. he is consistently defeating the guys he lost to.
In the past 12 years Rossi has been world champion 8 times, came second 3 times and came third one time. It is an unbelievable record considering that he raced in 4 different categories and rode 2 different teams. He lost 2007 championship due to his tires and switched tyres in 2008 and became world champion again. This year also he is leading the championship and is on course to win it.
he owns almost all the motogp records.
he has faced strong opponents like Max Biaggi, Sete Gibernau, Loris capirossi, Casey Stoner etc and has come on tops of them. One time he vowed that as long he is racing Sete Gibernau would not win another race and indeed Sete never won another race after that.
Rossi passes all the yardsticks above and also he is a big Showman so that is an extra for him.

On the other hand, on a holiday in Spain in 1996 I was surprised to find that every second petrol station had a life-sized cardboard cutout of Mick Doohan advertising a particular product. That rather makes a point about the international popularity of motor-bike riding. In other words, it’s an argument in favor of Rossi.

Incidentally, the two surfing exceptions are Martin Potter (GB, 1989) and Shaun Tomson (SAf, 1977). According to his wikipedia entry, Potter was born in GB but grew up in South Africa. So that is really only one extra country to add to the very small list. Surfing is probably even less of a world sport than rugby league. How many of the Kelly Slater enthusiasts would like to argue that Andrew Johns preceded him as the world’s greatest sportsman?

Lance Armstrong 7 x Tour winner (then retired), Slater 8 x World Champ(only broken by semi retirement), Schumacher mulit x WC (then retired), Sampras then Federer record number of grand slams, Rossi 8 x WC, Tiger (on course for grand slam record). I am sure there are more although womens sport and particularly tennis the domination is shorter.

Is the why, more money and therefore better teams (arguable for Rossi, Schumacher, and Armstrong) but doesn’t explain Slater, Sampras, Federer or Tiger.

Kelly Slater would have to be the man, not only is he an unreal surfer with unbeatable track record in a sport where he could get turned into sharkbait, he’s a real gentlemen and besides he has Gisele Bundchen as his girlfriend.

It’s a shame he missed out on the McRae, Burns era of the late nineties.

He has 9 World Titles, and is both the youngest and oldest to win a title. The WCT demands a level of consistency and courage that few other sports can match. Every wave is different, and every competitor surfs differently in each wave. Add to this the incredible levels of courage required to surf 10 foot Pipeline, and 15 foot Teahupoo, where death is a very real risk, and you have the most challenging environment in world sport.

To win 9 World Titles in this arena against surfers like Andy and Bruce Irons, Mick Fanning, Mark Occhilupo, Sunny Garcia and Taj Burrow is beyond amazing.

I find it difficult to compare across different motorsports, let alone to compare motorsports with other sports. So I’m not saying that Loeb is better than Rossi. But what I am saying is that I can’t see any reason to regard Rossi as being better than Loeb.

And for the record I am not a rallying nut, in fact I don’t have any allegiance to any particular motorsport.

At the track yesterday I spotted some Aussie fans wearing a shirt that said – “Better an hour with Rossi than a lifetime with Stoner”

For an athlete to turn some Australians against one of their own says a lot in my opinion.

For example while Phelps was a star of the Olympics, he has fallen off the radar and will not be competing on the global stage for another four years.

Same with Slater and Beachley – surfing just doesn’t have a big enough profile.

Or maybe Phillip Adams (no not the journo) the farmer from Forbes. The most successful Commonwealth Games athlete with 17 medals? He competed in the very demanding Air Pistol event. I will admit he ended his career in controversy, cleared of a positive drug test – it turned out to be his blood pressure medication was a diuretic.

Rabz