Greatest-ever nearly men

[Diable Rouge]

1. Jimmy White (6 final losses)
2. Stirling Moss (unfortunately same era as Fangio)
3. Seán Kelly (several World Championships but no Tour)
4. Greg Norman
5. Dan Marino (best player never to win the Superbowl)

I'll leave it to you to think of tennis examples and other sports.

[kugelrund]

Greatest-ever nearly men

1. Raymond "Poupou" Poulidor: three 2nd places and five 3rd places in the Tour de France, and never wore the yellow jersey in 14 Tours, because he was unlucky enough to be competing against two of the greatest cyclists in history, Jacques Anquetil and Eddy Merckx.

A couple of kind-of nearly men:

Colin Montgomerie could squeeze into your list (if you widened the entrance) - no major, no US PGA Tour win.

Given his record elsewhere, you can't call him a nearly-man, but I always wanted Ivan Lendl to win Wimbledon just once, if only to confound those who used to deride his "robotic" baseline play.

[Janik]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Diable Rouge wrote:

4. Greg Norman

Not really. He won the Open twice. OK, he should have won more than that, but to be a nearly man he would have needed to win no majors. cf., Montgomerie, Sergio Garcia (probably). Underachiever is the better characterisation, because it acknowledges that he did achieve something.

kugelrund wrote:

I always wanted Ivan Lendl to win Wimbledon just once, if only to confound those who used to deride his "robotic" baseline play

He has an ultimate triumph, though. Everyone plays in the Lendl style nowadays.

I can't think of many top level male tennis players who've gone an entire career without a slam title. Most got their eventually, though it was very late for Ivanisevic. Henman didn't, of course, and Murray hasn't as yet. Miloslav Mecir, maybe?
Edit - thinking about women's world #1 who haven't won slams brings me to the only man to combine this; Marcelo Rios.

From the women, there are a few recent world no.1's without a slam title. Safina, Jankovic, Wozniacki. Dementieva hasn't been #1, but also hasn't won a slam yet, which she ought to have done.

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Caster Semenya

[Tubby Isaacs]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Doug Sanders deserves a mention. He's often spoken of like he was Jean Van De Velde, a journeyman who nearly won something big once.

But he was a bit better than that:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Sanders

Second in a major three times.

Another golfer only tangentally relevant here but whose story I like:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Wood_(golfer)

Craig Wood won two majors, eventually- previously had come 2nd 5 times. Including at the Masters where he was beaten by Gene Sarazen's "double eagle".

[evilC]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Ronnie Peterson.

Ivan Lendl. (At least in terms of Wimbledon wins. He won pretty much everything else.)

Warren Moon. (He never won the Superbowl either, did he? And his total yardage throughout his professional career - on both sides of the border - surpassed even Marino's, I believe.)

[evilC]

Greatest-ever nearly men

I would say that I can't even remember the other pole vaulters who were being eclipsed by Sergey Bubka and Yelena Isinbayeva, but I'm shocked to look back and learn that they only won one and two Olympic golds respectively. However, their respective 6 and 5 World Championships speak more about their dominance.

Trying to pursue your sporting career in the same field as them must have been so demoralising.

[kugelrund]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Janik wrote:
kugelrund wrote:

I always wanted Ivan Lendl to win Wimbledon just once, if only to confound those who used to deride his "robotic" baseline play

He has an ultimate triumph, though. Everyone plays in the Lendl style nowadays.

What most got on my nerves was that there were other male baseline players - both Connors and Agassi were around at either end of his career - but the "robotic" / "machine-like" epithets were only aimed at Lendl.

They would never have come about had he not been from Czechoslovakia. Communist = robotic and unimaginative. Hence, in similar fashion, the East German and Soviet Union football teams were always "well-drilled" (and while we're doing different lazy stereotypes, a West German football team with Breitner, Beckenbauer and Netzer would still be called "efficient").

[Janik]

Greatest-ever nearly men

kugelrund wrote:

Connors and Agassi were around at either end of his career - but the "robotic" / "machine-like" epithets were only aimed at Lendl.

Connors didn't play the same way, though. He used much flatter shots with less spin, basically because he developed his game before modern composite racquets came into being. Lendl was the first 'modern' player, using shots with lots of clearance over the net, hit hard with oodles of top spin to bring them safely back down into court. There was much more risk of missing in Connors shots than there ever was for Lendl.

[David Agnew]

Greatest-ever nearly men

evilC wrote:

I would say that I can't even remember the other pole vaulters who were being eclipsed by Sergey Bubka and Yelena Isinbayeva, but I'm shocked to look back and learn that they only won one and two Olympic golds respectively. However, their respective 6 and 5 World Championships speak more about their dominance.

Trying to pursue your sporting career in the same field as them must have been so demoralising.

Except during the Olympics.

Bubka's problem in the 1992 Olympics was that he was so far ahead of the field, that rather than warm up and hit some easier heights, he passed until the height was at gold medal level, and by the time he realised he was having an off-day, it was too late.

[David Agnew]

Greatest-ever nearly men

For Formula One, it's probably Chris Amon - eight third places, three seconds, and a best placed 4th in a season - yet the greatest driver never to win a Formula One race. His lack of success was considered mainly down to back luck. Mario Andretti one famously noted: "If he became an undertaker, people would stop dying".

[Sean of the Shed]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:

Caster Semenya

Quality.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Pretty much any of the All Blacks as they have never won a World Cup.

[adams house cat]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Good call with Chris Amon.

David Bedford?

[Janik]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Antepli Ejderha wrote:

Pretty much any of the All Blacks as they have never won a World Cup.

Except for the players in the team that won the first one.

[Purves Grundy]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Rogin the Armchair Fan wrote:

Caster Semenya

Magnificent.

[Antepli Ejderha]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Janik wrote:

Antepli Ejderha wrote:

Pretty much any of the All Blacks as they have never won a World Cup.

Except for the players in the team that won the first one.

Forgot to add the post 87 clause, thanks Janik.

Who would be the best player of that generation not to win, not Jonah Lomu of course but someone like Andrew Mehrtens.

[Gambrinus]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Antepli Ejderha wrote:

Janik wrote:

Antepli Ejderha wrote:

Pretty much any of the All Blacks as they have never won a World Cup.

Except for the players in the team that won the first one.

Forgot to add the post 87 clause, thanks Janik.

Who would be the best player of that generation not to win, not Jonah Lomu of course but someone like Andrew Mehrtens.

Cullen

[Eggchaser]

Greatest-ever nearly men

We like to say the 1987 World Cup doesn't count, as this only sends the Precious-O-Meter raging further upwards to the amusement of all bar the All Chokers.

[Third rate Leszno]

Greatest-ever nearly men

David Agnew wrote:

For Formula One, it's probably Chris Amon - eight third places, three seconds, and a best placed 4th in a season - yet the greatest driver never to win a Formula One race. His lack of success was considered mainly down to back luck. Mario Andretti one famously noted: "If he became an undertaker, people would stop dying".

Spot on. Jean Alesi coulda been a contender, but for Montreal in 1995.

[The Purple Cow]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Raymond Poulidor was the first name I thought of when I saw the thread title.

[Satchmo Distel]

Greatest-ever nearly men

At Wimbledon:

Betty Stove (3 finals in 1977, all lost)

Rosewall

Mandlikova

Rafter

Teams:

QPR 1976

Ipswich 1981

Newcastle 1996

St Etienne mid-70's

Hungary 1954

Holland 1974

USSR 1988

[Diable Rouge]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Didn't that Ipswich team win the UEFA Cup?

[Rogin the Armchair fan]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Among English football teams of that era, I think West Brom are now the most forgotten. Under Ron Atkinson they finished 6th in the league and got to the Cup semis in 1978, finished third in the league and reached the UEFA Cup quarter-finals in 1979, then finished fourth in the league in 1981, and after Atkinson left for Man U they reached both Cup semi-finals in 1982.

Not a trophy or even a Cup final appearance to show for it, though, in a 5-year period when thirteen other English clubs managed one or the other.

[Satchmo Distel]

Greatest-ever nearly men

Douze Points Rouges wrote:

Didn't that Ipswich team win the UEFA Cup?

Yes but I'm assuming that the league would have been a far more valuable prize. Moreover, it would have given them a strong chance of winning the European Cup.