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dukeclimber
Apr 29, 2004, 5:19 AM
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Right now there is a vote at ESPN.com on the greatest female athlete alive. Lynn Hill is at the bottom of the bracket. Go to Page Two of the website and click on her name and vote for her. It'd be great to see a climber get the recognition they deserve as an all around athlete. It's really too bad they don't have a climber in the men's bracket.
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andy_lemon
Apr 29, 2004, 5:31 AM
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Nice find...
http://msn.espn.go.com/
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bozemaniac
Apr 29, 2004, 5:41 AM
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Here it is:
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=degree/female/athlete/2004
Bottom bracket. Click on her name. Then click to vote.
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sandbag
Apr 29, 2004, 5:45 AM
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Sorry, i cant in good conscience even think Lynn is the greatest woman athlete alive, because arent there any old olympians and other athletes that have been around for while that broke down racial barriers and social stigmas? Ill agree with that fiel they are presenting shes a cool candidate for that ranking but definitely not just overall...... :?
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climbsomething
Apr 29, 2004, 5:50 AM
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Sweeeeet.
But I'm skeptical. It's hard to relate to climbing if you're not a climber. As a non-swimmer, I can still appreciate 16 world records and swimming 100m in less than a minute. But before I climbed, I had no idea what The Nose was, much less the significance of doing it "free" and "in a day."
Couldn't they have matched Lynn up against a golfer? :P
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kalcario
Apr 29, 2004, 5:55 AM
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From their website:
"In 1994, she climbed the Nose in 23 hours, a speed record that hasn't been broken. And she's still one of the best climbers in the world -- male or female -- at age 43."
More accurately:
"In 1994, she free climbed the Nose in one day, a feat that has not been repeated 10 years later by anyone, let alone in a day. She was also the best American rock climber of the 90's - male or female."
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dukeclimber
Apr 29, 2004, 5:56 AM
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I don't know how anyone can have a problem voting for Lynn Hill as the greatest female athlete, at least of those in the bracket. How many other of those women have done something that no one else (man or woman) can do? Also, if I recall the stories correctly, Lynn also had some weight lifting records and was a top track athlete. She's been good at everything.
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scuclimber
Apr 29, 2004, 5:58 AM
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I'm glad she's not in the same bracket as Marion Jones. I've run a hell of a lot more than I've climbed and Marion is yeah... very fast. Maybe pound for pound the best athlete on the planet (no, I really don't have the time or the inclination to debate this).
Colin
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andy_lemon
Apr 29, 2004, 6:02 AM
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So how do you vote? :?
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sdwoods
Apr 29, 2004, 6:05 AM
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Was she not also the first woman to climb 5.14?
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climbsomething
Apr 29, 2004, 6:13 AM
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In reply to: Was she not also the first woman to climb 5.14?
Like the first-timers at the gym say... "what do these numbers on the tape mean? Is that good?"
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epic_ed
Apr 29, 2004, 6:20 AM
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In reply to: Sorry, i cant in good conscience even think Lynn is the greatest woman athlete alive, because arent there any old olympians and other athletes that have been...snip... definitely not just overall...... :?
Sicne this is a "bracket" match up, you only need to vote if she is the better overall athlete beteween Lynn and whoever she is matched up against in that round. In this case, a swimmer. Voting is close in this first round, but more surprisingly to me is how many people have vote in the Hill/Coughlin bracket -- over 33,000!
Ed
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lambchop
Apr 29, 2004, 10:51 AM
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In reply to: Yeah. But again, does that make sense to anybody but climbers?
In a perfect world I guess we would all make informed, intelligent judgements :)
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cliffmonkey2003
Apr 29, 2004, 11:38 AM
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Maybe noone else knows the significance of her accomplishments, but as climbers, we have a responsibility to let the world know how great her feats really are. Most of us know at least something about the other athletics that Hill is up against, but we also know about climbing. This knowledge possibly makes us the most informed group of all the athletes and the group with the biggest obligation to vote, IMHO. We know what we're voting for. All I'm saying is that we are the voters that can put it all in perspective.
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ninjaslut
Apr 29, 2004, 11:51 AM
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In reply to: Sorry, i cant in good conscience even think Lynn is the greatest woman athlete alive, because arent there any old olympians and other athletes that have been around for while that broke down racial barriers and social stigmas? Ill agree with that fiel they are presenting shes a cool candidate for that ranking but definitely not just overall...... :?
So Jackie Robinson is a better athlete than Michael Jordan?
What the hell does racial or gender progress have to do with judging a person's athleticism? The question at hand only relates to the entrant's physical prowess and training-not your social politics. I've got to admit I don't understand where people get these fantasized attacks of conscience. What if I refused to vote for any athlete that doesn't have a good singing voice? Would that be any less relevant?
If you read the article, I think you'll find that the contest suggests that people focus more on the physical accomplishments of these women, rather than their image. They specifically mention Anna Kournikova as an example of a female athlete given an unbalanced amount of attention for something other than how she plays. Would you ever say that the fact that Anna K. is cute makes her a better athlete? Equally, how can you relate any social attributes--however impressive--to a contest attempting to rate someone’s physical power, agility, and stamina?
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ninjaslut
Apr 29, 2004, 12:16 PM
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If you want to discuss who the best athlete is, you probably have to at least weight that discussion with a consideration of the difficulty of the sport. And in terms of athleticism, I'd have to give a little deference to swimming over rock climbing, at least if we're starting from a basis of being the best in the world for a period of time. Consider, about 1 million people on the planet are rock climbers. How many swimmers are there? 20 million? 80 million? Setting a world record in a sport tens of millions of people have been trying for over a century seems like more of an accomplishment than setting a world record in climbing, a sport which has only recently been practiced by 1 million, and has only been taken seriously on its own since the 50's or 60's.
Further increasing the difficulty of success in swimming is the competition-timing factor. Swimmers don't get to count their best practice lap ever; they have to be their best on the certain day when a competition happens. In the case of the Olympics, if they have a bad day during that competition, they're back to being no one for 4 years. I'm too new at climbing to know this, but Lynn Hill probably planned her ascent, trained for it on her own schedule and did it when she was ready, and we still counted it. Did she never try it and fail? Do you think it would have gone as well if some agency demanded she do it on May 2nd, 1994 for instance, rather than whenever she felt good about it? (I wasn’t a climber back then, so I hope I’ve guessed the details of the accomplishment well.)
I don't mean to disparage Lynn Hill, she's an astounding athlete. She's done something that I never think I'll be skilled enough to even consider, and it ought to be recognized, but I can’t assume it beats what that swimmer has accomplished in her life—at least not just because I like Lynn’s sport better.
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cantbuymefriends
Apr 29, 2004, 12:45 PM
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Wasn't there some kind of invitation multisport event(s) back in late 80's - early 90's, where Lynn Hill competed against top athletes in other disciplines and usually won? I think that would make her an outtanding all-round athlete, and NOT "just a climber"!
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mike_ok
Apr 29, 2004, 12:49 PM
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ninjaslut: in one sense I agree with you. The demands of an olympic athelete are different from that of the "professional" climber who plans their assent.
That being said, Hill's accomplishment ranks her as first class in the world because she has accomplished something that NO ONE, male or female, has accomplished since. In most sports, women compete at a lower level than their male counterparts. Yet here we have an example of a woman who doesn't need to compete in "women's swimming" or "women's track." Freeing the Nose is a huge accomplishment, and in my opinion is recognizable to a non-climber as well (with a bit of explanation). Non-climber after explanation: "She climbed how many feet? And no one had ever done it before? And no one has done it since? Dang I thought all rock climbers were super-human to begin with... this girl is uber-climber."
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j_ung
Apr 29, 2004, 1:13 PM
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I wonder how Hill feels about her inclusion in this contest.
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dredsovrn
Apr 29, 2004, 1:45 PM
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Get in there and vote. Lynn is currently trailing by .5%.
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rhu
Apr 29, 2004, 1:53 PM
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In reply to: athletes that have been around for while that broke down racial barriers and social stigmas?
What does that have to do with being an athlete? Why are you trying to confuse the issue?
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photon
Apr 29, 2004, 2:09 PM
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Why'd they have to put her up against the only other person I would have voted for? Swimming, while being the best organized sport doesn't really cross over to other sports that well. Natalie's one hell of an athlete ( I read while standing she can put her elbows on the ground! Sheesh!) and I hope she wins several gold medals this summer. I thought about it for a second though and considering Lynn's gymnastics, track, tough "girl" brawls etc, and of course her all around climbing accomplishments, I went with her. I think if all the athletes in the group had some kind of cross sport challenge with both adventure and mainstream sports Lynn would be very hard to beat.
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ninjaslut
Apr 29, 2004, 2:25 PM
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Mike, if you had the chops to be a world class sprinter and a world class climber, which one do you think you'd pick to take most seriously? There's big endorsements, big recognition, and a chance for Olympic glory in the mainstream track sport. In climbing, there's about 10,000 people who might show up to watch you depending on where you climb, and will say "nice" when you send a hard problem or "you ok?" when you crash. But, let's face it, the global recognition our sport has to offer just can't compete with almost anything you'd see in the NBA, MLB, NFL or at the Olympics (curling notwithstanding). The point is that if a great athlete can be great at anything, chances are a great athlete would go with a bigger sport, either because the glory/money is better, or because he tried it at school and just found out about it earlier. Those great athletes that decide to give up the rewards of bigger sports for a love of climbing are quite impressive to me, but they must be a tiny minority.
Ok, Mike, we both agree that freeing the Nose is a huge accomplishment, and that it was done by only one female and has not yet been matched by anyone else of either gender is also quite impressive. But I suggest that all accomplishments in sports are judged relative to the performance of everyone else in the field. As rock climbing is a young sport, and still probably considered something of a "fringe" pastime, I can't assume it draws the best athletes, even at the top of the game. So, to judge any accomplishment in climbing, one has to consider that he is comparing the accomplishment to a greatly diminished talent pool. Lynn is competing against about 1 million people. Even though those people are of both genders, how is that more impressive than being measurably better than the 200 million women who have tried the sport over the last century?
If climbing drew talent like the NBA does, (and maybe it will in 40 years) we might be thinking that no one is a world class climber unless they beat Hill's record. Think of how much has changed since the sixties. Wasn't 5.11 impossible not too long ago?
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ninjaslut
Apr 29, 2004, 2:44 PM
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What is with this interdisciplinary consideration? If you ask me, a huge part of being an athlete is not just acquired skill; it's a process of changing one's own body to make it a better tool for performing at the sport you chose, and often, that process, when successful, makes the body a worse tool for opposing disciplines. If I train to deadlift 500 pounds, I'm a good weightlifter and a good athlete...but I'm probably going to suck at triathlons. If I've conditioned myself to run a marathon in 2:40, chances are I'd better keep my ass out of sumo wrestling, but I'm not a bad athlete.
If you don’t buy that argument, I say they all just box for it. Boxing has got to be the most athletically intense sport anywhere. There’s no easy way to do it; in many cases, you can’t even effectively practice alone without injuring yourself. It’s not like you can go for a nice easy swim, or climb 5.4 until you’re comfortable. In boxing, if you don’t pay attention, you’ll probably break a wrist on your first day! Hitting a heavy bag with any power for 30 minutes almost knocks me out, and bags don’t swing back; I can’t image how hard it must be while some human jackhammer is beating the crap out of you! Again, I say they all box for it: last woman standing is the athlete of the century, and if one of them is a professional boxer already, I don’t know…make her also knit a sweater in the first round.
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reno
Apr 29, 2004, 2:54 PM
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In reply to: In reply to: athletes that have been around for while that broke down racial barriers and social stigmas? What does that have to do with being an athlete? Why are you trying to confuse the issue?
Because the best athletes are often "forced" by the masses to become spokespersons for one thing or another. And such "demands" are often a burden, causing one to be stretched so thin, athletic prowress becomes a "secondary" concern.
Jesse Owens, in the Berlin Olympics, won 4 events, but he's MOST remembered for his defiant stance when looking at A.H. He basically said "I am a man first, a black man second, and an athlete third." (Forgive me if I'm not PC enough... it's never been my strong suit.)
Athletes are looked to as role models. The measure of a person is how well they carry that burden. Consider: Charles Barkley. By any standard, he was a heck of an athlete. Strong, fast, explosive, quick, and skilled. Yet he was the subject of much disdain for his comments: "I am not a role model." (The correctness of this statement isn't the issue... the public's reaction to the statement is the issue.) The masses in general viewed Barkely as a lesser-quality "athlete" than other NBA players (many of whom were lesser skilled,) who accepted the role model title.
So, yes... someone's position, stance, and actions OUTSIDE of their sport are a large part of that person's ranking as an athlete. Such is the price we pay for placing sport in a position of admiration.
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