Lighthouses - best in your own country at your sport by ridiculous levels

[Gangster Octopus]

British female cyclists:

on the road - Nicole Cooke
on the track - Victoria Pendleton
on a BMX - Shanaze Reade

Beryl Burton.

[Toby Gymshorts]

It is a ridiculous sentence, now I read it again. Then again the truth is often ridiculous (and my shoe rack is the size of a small market town).

[treibeis]

I say that as a person who barely ever wears Nike.

I Like the adverb in that sentence. Conjurs up images of you standing, Imelda Marcos-style, before a shoe rack the size of a market town.

[Southport Zeb]

Aaron Cook of Moldova in taekwondo.

And I'm guessing for the Isle of Man as well.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Aaron Cook of Moldova in taekwondo.

[Antepli Ejderha]

For cycling what about Peter Sagan of Slovakia or Steve Bauer of Canada?

[Janik]

And downhill, Rachel Atherton.

Nope.

[Kevin S]

British female cyclists:

on the road - Nicole Cooke
on the track - Victoria Pendleton
on a BMX - Shanaze Reade

And downhill, Rachel Atherton.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Those black hi-tops are ace, and I say that as a person who barely ever wears Nike.

[Janik]

British female cyclists:

on the road - Nicole Cooke
on the track - Victoria Pendleton
on a BMX - Shanaze Reade

Err, other British women were winning Olympic and World titles on the track. So definitely not Pendleton, who is in very much of the primus inter pares category. The same is also true of Cooke, Brits were commonly her race rivals. I don't know enough about BMX racing to say the same of Reade, but do recall that her other half was one of the leading men at the time (Liam Phillips?). Cycling, at least as a competitive sport, is rather heavily dominated by rich western countries making it unlikely to have nominees for this category from those nations. However good the best those countries produced might happen to be.

Someone back on page 1 suggested Jonah Barrington. In terms of Irish Squash at the time, probably yes (though before my time so there may have been another player). In English Squash back then, not so much. However, some other Squash nominations do occur, a few of them current. Two of the current Men's top ten, in fact. Miguel Rodriguez (no.6) is the only Colombian Squash player to make any serious impression, and likewise Diego Elias (no.9) is the only Peruvian. Rodriguez is a bit older, and a generation of Colombians inspired by him is beginning to emerge with a couple of the next best now ranked between 100-150. However, I think he may be the only one ever to be inside the top 100. Elias is the only Peruvian in the top 500 currently.
Staying with Squash, and going back a year or two, Alister Walker's best World Ranking of 12 is light years ahead of any other Botswanan past or likely in the near future. He is now a veteran ranked around 250 and still comfortably the Botswana no.1. Further back, there were probably other Canadian Squash player besides Jonathon Power, so he likely doesn't actually count, but off the top of my head I can't recall any.
On the Women's side the candidate would probably be Nicol David, but there have been other international class Malaysian squash players. None have won anything like as much, but they could give her a proper game. So she actually doesn't count.


Oh, and in tennis terms, for a long while Ecuadorian tennis was the Lapentti brothers.

[Lang Spoon]

Tony Hand MBE. British ice hockey.

I fear the 'Tony Hand, wank wank wank' call of Fife Flyers mid 80s wiz pure jealousy.

[ursus arctos]

[Janik]

Zali Steggal. I don't recall any other Australian Alpine skiers even competing on the World Cup circuit at the back of the field; Steggal has an Olympic bronze and World Championships gold to her name.

[Toby Gymshorts]

Ah, Detlef Schrempf. I seem to recall - from my obsessive watching of 90's basketball - that he had the flattest of all flat-top haircuts.

[andrew7610]

British female cyclists:

on the road - Nicole Cooke
on the track - Victoria Pendleton
on a BMX - Shanaze Reade

[Stumpy Pepys]

Bob Nudd?

(The angler.)

[andrew7610]

Dougie Lampkin absolutely dominated motorcycle trials riding.
In a similar sport but without the engine, Danny MacAskill

[ad hoc]

Krisztina Egerszegi

Tamás Darnyi was a contemporary of Egerszegi. I guess it depends on whether we, like with the same question in the tennis category, consider men's and women's swimming to be somehow different

[Snake Plissken]

Tony Hand MBE. British ice hockey.

[Sporting]

Have we had Katie Taylor yet?

[treibeis]

He's the reason I didn't nominate Nowitzki, who is a class better than Schrempf. It is very early, but Schröder is a real talent.

It's not that early. The Dennis Schr,öder's what, 25, 26? The Threat and The Work were much better at that age.

[ursus arctos]

He's the reason I didn't nominate Nowitzki, who is a class better than Schrempf. It is very early, but Schröder is a real talent.

[Alderman Barnes]

Oh yeah, Detlef Schrempf, I'd forgotten about him. He certainly hasn't had such a blinding career in banking adverts, so he can be discounted. I had to look up Dennis Schröder because I'd never heard of him (because I stopped paying attention to anything about 20 years agio).

[treibeis]

For Germany, it could possibly be Dirk Nowitzki. I don't know much about basketball, but apparently he's quite good.

Germany seems to produce one good basketball player per generation. Before Dirk "Dirk The Work" Nowitzki, there was Detlef "Det The Threat" Schrempf, and now there's Dennis "Dennis Schröder" Schröder.

[Alderman Barnes]

For Germany, it could possibly be Dirk Nowitzki. I don't know much about basketball, but apparently he's quite good.

Closer to home for me, my daughter was at primary school with the daughter of Frankie Fredericks, who's got to be a candidate for this thread as well. See also Kim Collins.