Having saw the thread on the sin bin regarding the death of snooker legend Alex Higgins, I got the impression people thought he was one of the true greats of sports.

There has been some great sportsmen over the years. If you had a favourite top 5 (on performance, personality, what they have done for their sport etc), what would yours be?

Muhammed Ali
Pele
Valentino Rossi
Phil Taylor

And I'm not a big follower of cricket, but from what I've read and been told by friends and family who are, as well as looking purely at his record of achievements, Garfield Sobers.

I'm not old enough to have seen many of the "greats" that usually crop up in these sorts of lists but anyhoo, the best five that I've had the pleasure to have watched:

Lance Armstrong: Even if you ignore the whole "cancer thing", the guy won the world's toughest endurance event seven times.
Phil Taylor: You simply cannot argue with his success record. Very few get close to comparing to him in his sport.
Valentino Rossi: "Mr MotoGP". An outstanding rider on the track and a great character off it.
Tiger Woods: As with Taylor, you have to be bloody good to dominate a sport like he has.
Shane Warne: Something about him that I always seemed to like. A very good bowler and always seemed to enjoy a laugh with the crowd.

Miguel Indurain - 5 times Tour de France winner, inspired me to get into cycling
Tiger Woods - Revolutionised golf, dragged it kicking and screaming into the 21st century.
Ayrton Senna - Greatest F1 driver of all time imo, got me into watching F1
Valentino Rossi - As above but with motorbikes.
Steve Redgrave - Britain's greatest Olympian, someone we should be proud of.

well am going to do them from my life time, so some of the 80's and backwards sports men i never got to see so i will go for.

1. Phil Taylor
2. Leo Messi
3. Ricky Ponting ( running low on ideas now)
4. James Dean ( Halifax town fan, halifax town player)
5. Scott Phelan ( Halifax town fan, Halifax town player)

Great idea for a thread.

I thought that been a massive sports fan, that I would struggle to narrow my list down to 5, and I did. So after giving it a bit of thought over the last couple of hours, here goes.

Michael Jordan = Just unbelieveable to watch and an outstanding athelete.

Lance Armstrong = Although there is a constant drugs cloud hanging over cycling generally and many question wheather Lance is/was clean. I cannot help but feel nothing but admeration for what he has achieved. Even though it was a decent Tour de France this year, it wasn't nearly as exciting for me not having Lance in contention.

Phil Taylor = Simply dominating for so long.

Ayerton Senna = A total magician who would do anything, and often did, to win.

Wayne Gretzky = See Michael Jordan.

I decided on these 5, not just because they were so good at what they did, but because their individual brilliance and skill no doubt attracted many new fans to their sports.

Giacomo Agostini - the greatest motorcyclist who has ever lived.
Diego Maradona - a bloody genius
Phil Taylor - the greatest darts player there ever will be
Wayne Gretzky - a one in a lifetime player on the ice
Ayrton Senna - another genius.

Diego Maradona
Tiger Woods
Steve Redgrave
John McEnroe
Steve Davis

1. Muhammed Ali
2. Sir Gordon Richards
3. Sir Don Bradman
4. Pele
5. Eddy Merckx

1. Muhammed Ali
2. Ian Botham
3. Elleray Hanley - Its was watching his Wigan side that got me into RL in the first place
4. Gareth Edwards - just watch his try for the barbarians against New Zealand on a well known video sharing site to see why
5. Roger Osbourne - Purely for scoring the winning Goal in the '78 FA cup final