Michael Jordan
Michael Jordan is The Legendary Basketball Player, who is titled as the best player in the NBA. Although it ultimately fails to do any justice to a description of his basketball career and the impact he had on the game itself, Jordan single-handedly redefined the NBA superstar as a phenomenal athlete with a rare combination of simple soundness, grace, pace, strength, artistry, improvisational skill, and an unquenchable competitive drive.
Michael Jordan won 6 NBA Championships during his brilliant career, won a total of fourteen MVP awards, was picked for fourteen All-Star games, won ten scoring titles.
His influence, however, is far greater than awards and championships. As a rookie champion scoring in droves with an unmatched first move and acrobatic drives and dunks, he exploded into the league and ended his career as a cultural icon. Along the way, with his dynamic on-court skills and personal sense of style that was sold to the masses, he became a real champion who pioneered the NBA.
Usain Bolt
Usain Bolt improved his already mythical Olympic status with an unprecedented third straight triple 100 m, 200 m, and 4×100 m at Rio 2016, a feat that could well never be repeated. On the day of the Rio Games closing ceremony, a world record holder for all three distances and an 11-time world champion, the Jamaican star said farewell to the Olympic stage by celebrating his 30th birthday.
In the 21 events he competed in between 16 August 2008 and 19 August 2016, Usain Bolt won 20 Olympic and World Championship gold medals, a phenomenal number that made him the best sprinter of all time.
In 2004, Bolt made his Olympic debut in Athens as a 17-year-old, where he went out hampered by a broken hamstring in the opening round of the 200 m. When he returned to the Beijing Games four years later, however, the tall Jamaican sprinter was a clear favorite to win a double Olympic sprint, setting a new 100 m world record of 9.72 seconds in New York at the end of May, followed by the best 200 m of the year, 19.67, a few weeks later in the Greek capital.
In track and field history, Bolt accordingly engraved his name by taking the track with his signature gold spikes at the Bird’s Nest, trimming his world record to 9.69 and winning the 100 m at a canter, so much so that he enjoyed the triumph with arms stretched 20 meters away from the start. Another gold and another world record followed in the 200 m, with the Jamaican clocking 19.30 to eclipse Michael Johnson’s time in 1996 at Atlanta.
Additional World Championship triples came in Moscow in 2013 and Beijing in 2015, bringing his collection of world titles to a record 11, more than any other competitor. The Jamaican made his signature “Shh” move and “Lightning Bolt” celebration a familiar sight in arenas all over the world in collecting his large collection of golds.
Lionel Messi
Messi just played for FC Barcelona, where he signed at age 13. He plays for Argentina’s national team as well. At the age of sixteen, Messi made his first FC Barcelona appearance, placing himself as the youngest player to ever score a franchise goal in the record books on May 1, 2005. He led Argentina that same year to the title of the Under-20 World Cup, scoring on a pair of penalty kicks to catapult the team over Nigeria. Messi led Barcelona to a wealth of excellence, most notably in 2009, when the left-footer’s team captured the Champions League, La Liga, and Spanish Super Cup titles. In the same year, after two consecutive runner-up finishes, he took home his first FIFA “World Player of the Year” honor / Ballon d’Or award. Amazingly, while guiding Barcelona to the 2010 and 2011 La Liga and Spanish Super Cup championships, as well as the title of the ’11 Champions League, the soccer genius continued to develop, discovering new ways of eluding defenders. Messi went on an all-out assault on the record books in 2012. He became the first player to score five goals in a Champions League match in early March, and a few weeks later, he surpassed Cesar Rodriguez’s club-record 232 goals to become Barcelona’s all-time top scorer. By the end of 2012, Messi had scored an astounding 91 goals in club and international play, eclipsing Gerd Muller’s 85 in 1972 in a single calendar year. Fittingly, he broke another record when he was named a FIFA Ballon d’Or winner for the fourth time in January 2013. Since helping Barcelona win a historic second treble in 2015, he was honoured with his fifth FIFA Ballon d’Or award. After another La Liga title four years later, by winning his sixth Ballon d’Or, Messi again set a new level for perfection. Messi is a six-time winner of the FIFA Player of the Year. He also won the six-time European Golden Shoe for top scorer, two more than Cristiano Ronaldo, his closest competitor.
