What was the greatest sports feat ever accomplished?

Answer 1

There are many great moments in sports, but very few of them happened more than once. Wilt never scored another 100 points, no one hits 70+ HR a year for several years, very few teams dominate a decade with championships, there are too many variables that have to be controlled for them to happen.

This is why I think that Lance Armstrong has accomplished the greatest feat(s) in sports. He was a dominate rider( youngest world champion, TDF stage winner,) before over coming terminal cancer to win the TDF (tour de france) SEVEN times in a row. The TDF is the most physical, emotional, and mental challenge in sports. Cycling has so many variables to it, its nearly impossible to control them.

In addition how many of our sports "icons" raise the awareness level of a cause (Cancer) to the level he has, how many drop millions into the cause? Answer: Not a enough....Period.

Lance Armstrong has accomplished the greatest feat(s) in sports, he has raised the bar for all that follow; to become a social icon for a cause and the most dominate sportsman in 10 year period. No one else holds a candle to this!!

Answer 2

I have skimmed through the numerous and varied answers given here, and I would agree with that there is no SINGLE greatest sports feat ever accomplished.

Many people mentioned Cal Ripken, and his (apparently) insurmountable starting streak. Others mentioned Lance Armstrong, with his 7 Tour de France victories. And many mentioned Jesse Owens, and the way he ran circles around Hitler's boys (and everyone else) in Berlin in 1936. {Owens was the first person in Olympic history to win FOUR Track & Field gold medals}

There were other athletes and events mentioned multiple times, as well. But the "greatest feat" from seventy years ago (like Jesse Owens' Olympic triumph) is old news, nowadays. His records have been exceeded, many times over, in subsequent Olympic events.

I should like to point out, however, that although Mr. Owens' athletic accomplishments may have been surpassed, his contributions to the world, as a whole, will be recognized forever. He broke some records, and records will always be broken again and again. He also broke barriers--the most notable, of course, being the race barrier.

The outcome of a sporting event--whatever the sport may be--is of the utmost importance to the people participating in the sport, and to the fans, and to the spectators (and nowadays, maybe the networks and the sponsors).

But that's really just a small handful of people. The contributions of great men like Jesse Owens (and Jackie Robinson, and Joe Louis, and a great many others) have had a postive, lasting effect on the whole world.

I think the greatest sports feats ever accomplished are things that transcend sports.

Answer 3

Tough one. If you break it down into team vs. individual sports;
Team accomplishment is hard to decide. Someone mentioned Yankees winning so many World Series, but that is an accomplishment of the franchise not a single team. The UCLA teams that won , I think, 88 straight games comes closer, though, those teams also experienced some change over those 3+ years. That is an incredible record that I can't see any team ever coming close to again, esp. with kids leaving school early these days. If you look at a single team accomplishment, the 1980 US Hockey team, is right up there, as well as Villanova winning the championship in '84 (?) and the "Amazin' Mets" of '69(again, ?, I'm not good with dates). "Greatest sports feat" implies overcoming great odds, etc., which would qualify those 3. It can also imply doing something no other team has done, so you'd have to include the undefeated Miami Dolphins team, also. I'd probably pick the UCLA teams, even with the personnel changes considered.
Individual feats are even harder, just because there are so many. Van Der Meer's back-to-back no-hitters is a very worthy candidate, as well as Hershiser's consecutive innings and 56 straight games with a hit from Dimaggio. Jerry' Rice's records are hard to ignore as are Gretzky's.
The list goes on and on, but I have to agree with the majority of answers that I saw and give the nod, both individually and overall to Lance Armstrong. Winning the Tour de France is an amazing thing in itself, but to win it after the battle with cancer that he had (didn't they tell him he had, like, a 10% chance of survival or something??!!) is absolutely incredible, and then he went and did it 6 more times, consecutively! Unreal! Not just a sporting feat but a feat of humanity overall.

Answer 4

The greatest sports feat ever accomplished was when the Boston Red Sox came from behind a 3 game loss in the American League Championship against the New York Yankees and won the next 4 games to win the American League pennant. From there, they went on to the World Series and began their 4 game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals, who were by far the most dominating team in the National League and had the best record in the Majors. No other team has made such a comeback in sports history.

Answer 5

Topic: Baseball & Kurt Gibson.
First, it's the American past-time and this is of course the best country on the planet. That being said, Kurt Gibson’s 1988 World Series homerun where the Dodger's were the underdogs is amazing and a must see for all sports fans and even non-sports fans. That's partially why this is the greatest sports feat. It was supposed to be an easy series for the A’s. Instead, in the ninth inning of Game 1 an injured (and not expected to play) Gibson LIMPS onto the field only to belt out a homerun. The Dodgers won the series 4-1 and reminded everyone that underdogs still have a chance.

Answer 6

In order to answer that I think you have to include a sport in the question. Each sport has had its great feats. Example Babe Ruth hitting 60 HR's in a year. Mark McGwire destroying that record with 70 followed by Barry Bonds who hit 73 2 years later.

Walter Paytons 15,000+ career yards rushing.

Michael Jordon's, Shaq O'Neil's whole careers.

Before he went into politics Former President Ronald Regan was a sports broadcaster and an actor. As a sportcaster, his feat was he described, for radio, a play in a football game that he never saw because the field was engulfed in fog.

The 1980 US Olympic Hockey Team.

The George Forman Mohammed Ali fights.

The Last Horse to win the Triple Crown.

Danica Patrick being the first women to lead the Indy 500.

And I could go on.

All of these were great feats in thier respective sports.

So maybe the correct question should be What do you consider the most Memorable Sporting feat ever?

Answer 7

The 1980 Olympics was a monumental stage for the whole American Team for all sports. The USA Hockey Team beating the Soviets in the semi-finals, then winning the gold medal. This with a team of only college players. However, the greatest sports feat ever accomplished had to be Eric Heiden winning gold after gold medal, 5 individual overall. Many may think that speed skating really doesn't rank with Aaron's Home runs or Ripkens consecutive game streak or Wilt's 100 points, but it does. Heiden needed to achieve a world record to win one event, beat several world champions and several world record holders to win gold. Not once but five times. This accomplishment was on a world stage, with every top athlete from almost every country represented on this planet. The greatest sports feat ever accomplished.

Answer 8

That being said, Kurt Gibson’s 1988 World Series homerun where the Dodger's were the underdogs is amazing and a must see for all sports fans and even non-sports fans. That's partially why this is the greatest sports feat. It was supposed to be an easy series for the A’s. Instead, in the ninth inning of Game 1 an injured (and not expected to play) Gibson LIMPS onto the field only to belt out a homerun. The Dodgers won the series 4-1 and reminded everyone that underdogs still have a chance.

Answer 9

Unfortunately your question is too vague and has to be narrowed down, i.e. in the last ten years, 20 years, in the last decade. What kind of sports, major sports (golf, basketball, baseball, football, track, tennis, games on ice, swimming, gymnastics, boxing (if you can call that a sport) and so on. How about watermelon spitting or some of the lesser known X games and other weird made up sports. Anyway, this answer will be subjective to the person giving the answer and someone else will have a different opinion, plus there were probably so many great athletes in past history that no one even remembers any more. Pick any feat and you can find someone to say that this was the greatest sports feat, but it's just the only one that they can remember or that they care about. Oh, also, it will not be long before no one remembers a Tiger Woods, Carl Lewis, Hank Aaron, Babe Ruth, Larry Bird or any of these names, they will be saying Tiger who? Larry Bird, who is that? The day I saw my child make their first pitch in little league baseball, has to go down pretty high on my list, now mess with that Roger Clemons.

Answer 10

It is very challenging to pick one greatest sports feat without discounting ones own favorite sport, team or athlete. I am picking the greatest feat based on that the results were astonishing. This athlete absolutely crushed and destroyed the other 10 world class rivals. The victory was so overwhelming that when the camera was following this Champion, you could not even see the rest of the field in the picture. I can not imagine this accomplishment ever being repeated. I believe the most significant and dramatic victory belongs to Secretariat winning the Belmont by about 20 lengths.

Answer 11

The greatest feat in sports history. This is a great question. I am going to avoid the obvious feats involving some sort of political or social impact such as the 1980 Men's Ice Hockey team or the "Glory Road" team. I am also going to rule out anything that is a feat just because of longevity such as Ripken's Ironman streak. Yes he did play in all those games, but does that mean he actually was an asset to his team when he was batting .240 and refused to come out of the lineup? Probably not.

So without further adieu, the greatest feat in sports history has to be one of two choices. The first is Johnny Vander Meer tossing back to back no hitters in 1938. To put this in perspective, only three other pitchers in major league baseball history have thrown two no-nos in the same season. The second is Joe DiMaggio's 56-game hitting streak. People say that the hardest thing to do in the world of sport is to hit a round ball with a rounded bat, especially when it is curving, breaking, floating or going 95 miles an hour.