G.O.A.T.S of Their Fields: 20 of the Most Skilled People in History
Daniel Bonfiglio
Published
03/06/2024
in
ftw
Who is the G.O.A.T.? It's a debate sports fans have with each other all the time; Michael Jordan or LeBron James? Tom Brady or Patrick Mahomes? Barry Bonds or Willie Mays? Michael Schumacher or Lewis Hamilton? But in some fields, there is no debate, and one person stands alone. These 20 people are masters of their niche, and do what they do better than anybody else. Is it possible they are the most skilled person to ever live? Nobody can ever know the true answer to that question, but it's likely that person is on this list.
Wayne Gretzky is the undisputed greatest hockey player of all time, and sports fans love reciting his insane stats. Were he to have never scored a goal, he would still have the most points scored in NHL history on his assists alone. He and his brother hold the record for most goals scored between siblings; his brother has four. He holds 61 NHL records and just might be the greatest of any major world sports player compared to his peers.
Leaving sports, it's hard to imagine anyone more multifaceted than Leonardo Da Vinci. He mastered multiple sciences, sculpting, and painting, and was a prolific philosopher and inventor. The true definition of a Renaissance man, he may have been more beyond his time than anyone in history.
Read about them, and 18 other GOATS in this gallery of uniquely skilled geniuses.
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1.
Wayne Gretzky. If he never scored a goal in his career he would still be the all time NHL points leader with assists alone. Fastest to score 1000 points was Wayne Gretzky, second fastest to score 1000 points was Wayne Gretzky hitting 2000. Wayne and Brent Gretzky hold the record for most combined points from a pair of brothers, 2857 for Wayne and 4 for Brent. -
2.
Leonhard Euler. He was a genius. No matter which field of mathematics you study there will always be something remarkable by him. He revolutionized mathematics and alone accomplished more than hundreds of other mathematicians ever could. Without him we would be a hundred years back in time. -
3.
Aleksandr Karelin was a professional olympic wrestler who has a record of 887 wins and 2 losses. He lost only his first and last fight. And even that last one happened only by one point and due to a very controversial rule change in professional wrestling. To top it off, when the dude retired from wrestling, he went to university and wrote a PHD on methods of counterthrows and suplexing. He legit has a PHD in suplexing. -
4.
Einstein. Modern physics is divided into two realms, quantum physics, and relativity. An army of physicists developed quantum physics and constantly modify the standard model of particle physics. Nobody has yet modified or proven wrong the other half of physics, described by Einstein and his theory of general relativity. -
5.
John von Neumann. If the word "genius" should be applied to anyone, it's him. I guess you could call him a mathematician at heart but he did SO much stuff. A true polymath. -
6.
Nobody comes close to Sir Isaac Newton. Dude was the GOAT of physics and mathematics. Sir Isaac Newton discovered calculus at the same rate it's taught. He invented calculus to explain his theory of gravity because nobody believed him. -
7.
Definitely Leonardo da Vinci. Even just in terms of the number of skills he mastered, besides the fact that he truly mastered most, if not all, of these considering his time. He was a masterful painter, sculptor, anatomist, mathematician, engineer, musician, inventor, among many other other fields. -
8.
Michelangelo trumps him by a country mile in the fields of sculpting and painting. Da Vinci might have everything else but in no way could I ever imagine him being able to do the David, the Pieta, or the Sistine chapel. Genius and all as he was, it took him four years to do the Mona Lisa. -
9.
The Magician - Efren Bata Reyes in billiards. Always fascinated on how he calculated the angle to make a shot, you can watch his previous games on YouTube. Never gets old. -
10.
Nigel Richards. English and French Scrabble champion. He doesn't speak French, he only knows the valid words. -
11.
Rodney Mullen. He invented most skateboard tricks out of nowhere, on simple skateboards. His skill and balance on a skateboard is unbelievable. -
12.
Jahangir Khan - squash. 555 matches unbeaten. Possibly the greatest unbeaten run in any sport. Insane talent, unbelievable fitness, such a grueling sport. Dominated the 70s and 80s. -
13.
Ronnie O'Sullivan. The reason why he’s great is because not only is he totally unbeatable when he plays his best, but it’s the fact he’s so human as well. He is ridiculously fragile, a slave to his own emotions, goes through phases of really poor mental health, struggles tremendously with the pressure of having to perform, and is his own worst enemy and can implode spectacularly when his head isn’t in it. But, he’s still also the greatest, by some margin. It makes it amazing to watch. You never know what side of him will turn up. It’s like being on the edge of your seat sometimes with the way he plays the game. And being how human he is, the spectators love him because we can see our own human weakness in him but vicariously celebrate as he seems to overcome it. -
14.
Sir Donald Bradman. Context for those of you who don't know cricket, A batting average refers to a batsmans runs per innings. Bradman's test batting average is 99.94. This means he was pretty much good for 100 runs, referred to as a century, every time he came out and batted. A century in cricket is a huge deal. For context, David Warner, who has just retired from test cricket, has been a staunch opening batsman for Australia since his debut in 2011. He managed to score 26 test centuries in his entire career for an average of 45.59 runs per innings. The next best all time career test batting average belongs to another Australian player, Adam Vogues, whose average is 61.97. -
15.
Lt. Cmdr Jonny Kim. Enlisted in the Navy and served as a Seal, went to Harvard Medical to become a doctor, trained as a pilot and served as both an aviator and flight surgeon, and then was selected to be an astronaut, scheduled to land on the moon next year. -
16.
Michael Larson, the guy who memorized the light patterns of the Press Your Luck game show and mopped the floor with the other contestants. -
17.
Good ole Bill Shakespeare. Churned out masterpieces of drama for popular audiences that turned out to be incredibly profound and linguistically rich. Hundreds of years later we're still reading them and they remain resistant to our attempts to "master" them through interpretation. There has never been anyone in the literary world who deserved the term "genius" more than William Shakespeare. -
18.
Simo Häyhä, aka the White Death. Over 500 confirmed kills, rarely used a scope. -
19.
Usain Bolt. -
20.
Lee Young H0, AKA Flash. The literal God of Starcraft. Nobody else even comes close. Not only is he in a tier of his own, but he's in a tier of his own in the game with the highest skill cap in existence. Starcraft is the most pure distillation of skill there is in gaming and he stands alone at the top. He has an over 70% winrate in every matchup. He is so good that tournament organizers had to actively attempt to sabotage him in order to keep things interesting. Instead of taking that, he just switched to playing Random and made the semifinals which is just nonsensically amazing. Playing random is like only getting 1/3 of the gains from any amount of practice. It doesn't require being 3x as good. It requires being 9x as good.
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Wayne Gretzky. If he never scored a goal in his career he would still be the all time NHL points leader with assists alone. Fastest to score 1000 points was Wayne Gretzky, second fastest to score 1000 points was Wayne Gretzky hitting 2000. Wayne and Brent Gretzky hold the record for most combined points from a pair of brothers, 2857 for Wayne and 4 for Brent.
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