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

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  • Third rate Leszno
    replied
    Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
    Unless Les or anyone else can correct me, I suspect Qatar hasn't produced any rally drivers who can hold a candle to Nasser Al-Attiyah.
    Originally posted by Kevin S View Post
    Though actually wiki throws up Saeed Al-Hajri and Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari as having competed at a high level for a bit.
    Saeed Al-Hajri was half decent - I saw him driving for Rothmans Porsche in the 80s when he had legendary Cork man Billy Coleman as his team mate, and he went to Ireland to do a few tarmac events, earning the affectionate local nickname of 'Sid Hedgerow'.

    If I were to choose an outlier in the world of rallying I'd say Markko Martin, the first, and at the time only Estonian competing at a significant level in the WRC. But for the tragic accident on Rally GB in 2005 which claimed the life of his co-driver and abruptly finished Markko's career, he'd have overlapped with Urmo Aava's very brief stint at the top level, but it's only now with Ott Tanak beginning to dominate that Estonia have another star to follow.

    I was wondering about Egon Muller as Germany's only speedway world champion, but although he won a few long track titles as well, he wasn't a consistent threat to the top riders from more established speedway nations, and he did have a few team mates of reasonable standard (Alois Wiesbock, Georg Hack, Karl Meier, Gerd Riss).

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  • multipleman78
    replied
    Krisztina Egerszegi

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  • Vicarious Thrillseeker
    replied
    Sergio Parisse.

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  • seand
    replied
    Sprinter Kim Collins (5 World championship medals, Commonwealth winner, Olympic finalist) may be the most famous thing about St Kitts and Nevis. And Frankie Fredericks, I'm guessing, is a bit of a stand out in Namibian sprinting circles.

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  • Sporting
    replied
    True

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  • treibeis
    replied
    Originally posted by Sporting View Post
    George Best.
    What about Pat Jennings?

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  • Sporting
    replied
    George Best.

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  • treibeis
    replied
    Jonathan Edwards.

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  • seand
    replied
    Originally posted by tee rex View Post
    There would be quite a few names if you consider small countries and swimming. Anthony Nesty of Surinam, Danyon Loader of NZ and Michelle NoLongerMentioned of Ireland.
    Great call... Ireland's most successful Olympian by a country mile, never mind Ireland's most successful swimmer by a couple of turbo-powered legnths of the pool. That's all we need to know about Michelle Smith, move along now.

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  • seand
    replied
    Originally posted by Wouter D View Post

    Jari Litmanen.
    Litmanen was a contemporary of Sami Hyypia though who won a lot of medals and player/team of the year awards at a high level

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  • Etienne
    replied
    Wasn't Marie-Jo Perec the French record holder at every distance from 100m to 800m.

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  • multipleman78
    replied
    Do they have to be champions in their sport or effectively the only competitor from a country? Did Eddie the Eagle have any British rivals?

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  • Antepli Ejderha
    replied
    Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
    Hence my specific reference to men's tennis
    Sorry, should have been clearer as to why I posted. My understanding is that there was an investment in tennis in Serbia resulting in both men's and women's tennis doing well. There were a couple of other men who did reasonable well at the same time but injuries hampered their progress. Serbia won the Davis Cup in that period and Janko Tipsarević was a top ten player.

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  • caja-dglh
    replied
    I am learning surprising strength in depth at chess due to this thread.

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  • elguapo4
    replied
    Robin Seymour was Irish mountain bike champion for 15 years in a row from 1993 to 2008 and 20 times in total, he was also cyclocross champion 18 times.

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  • tee rex
    replied
    There would be quite a few names if you consider small countries and swimming. Anthony Nesty of Surinam, Danyon Loader of NZ and Michelle NoLongerMentioned of Ireland.
    Last edited by tee rex; 14-03-2019, 20:14. Reason: names

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  • ursus arctos
    replied
    Good point, well made

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  • S. aureus
    replied
    Originally posted by ursus arctos View Post
    Giannis Antetokounmpo in Basketball will certainly have this status for Greece if he doesn't suffer a catastrophic injury, and already does for Nigeria.
    Hakeem Olajuwon might have something to say about the second part of that sentence.

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  • Kevin S
    replied
    Al-Attiyah is also an Olympic medallist in skeet by the way.

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  • Kevin S
    replied
    Though actually wiki throws up Saeed Al-Hajri and Abdulaziz Al-Kuwari as having competed at a high level for a bit.

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  • Kevin S
    replied
    Unless Les or anyone else can correct me, I suspect Qatar hasn't produced any rally drivers who can hold a candle to Nasser Al-Attiyah.

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  • ad hoc
    replied
    Hence my specific reference to men's tennis

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  • Antepli Ejderha
    replied
    Originally posted by ad hoc View Post
    Djokovic at least in men's tennis seems to exist in another universe to any other Serbian player
    They had two decent women players at a similar time iirc. Ana Ivanovic and Jelena Jankovic, Ivanovic won the French open and was world number one while Jankovic was also a world number one and a grand slam finalist. 2008 was there golden year.

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  • Southport Zeb
    replied
    Morten Andersen. Coincidently the player he overtook to become all time NFL top scorer was a South African called Gary Anderson. Whilst on the topic of NFL placekickers, Andersen is one of two NFL Hall of Famers to play exclusively as a kicker; the other was Jan Stenerud, a Norwegian who originally went to university in America on a ski jumping scholarship.

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  • ad hoc
    replied
    People who played American football seem a fair bet here since in many cases they are /were about the only person from their country to play the sport. There was that Danish kicker - Morten Anderson (?) who is or was the highest scorer in NFL history

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