Muhammad Ali, Usain Bolt, Serena Williams, Cristiano Ronaldo and Tiger Woods are just some of the names in the conversation about the greatest athlete of all time. With so many disciplines and eras to weigh up, the question of sport’s overall GOAT will always prove an impossible one, but that doesn’t make it any less fun for fans to discuss.

Now, as much as we could try to nail our colours to the mast by naming our pick for the athlete to end all athletes, no doubt you’ll agree that this is a matter best decided upon by the supporters. After all, collating together fan opinions is perhaps the fairest way for the complications of different sports and periods to be traversed and diluted into one big expression of people’s views.

That’s where thetoptens.com comes in. By pooling the opinions of sports lovers across the width and breadth of the globe via their interactive list of the “Greatest Athletes of All Time,” the masses have settled the GOAT debate once and for all in 2026.

10

Jim Thorpe

Athletics, American Football, Baseball and Basketball

Jim Thorpe was born half a millennium too late, but he was undoubtedly a Renaissance man. Not only did the US icon from the early 20th century thrive in both baseball and American football in a similar vein to Bo Jackson, but he also won two Olympic gold medals in Athletics.

These titles were initially taken away from him due to a violation of rules before taking part in the Olympic Games. But they were then restored to him three decades after his death. Thorpe began his baseball career in 1913 and continued this until 1919 while also kicking off his American football career in 1915, which ended in 1928.

9

Pele

GettyImages

Pele is still widely regarded as one of the greatest football players of all time and ranks the highest among his professional peers on this list, above the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. The Brazilian passed away in late 2022, but will always be remembered for his contributions to the game with a swollen goal record and an unrivalled haul of three World Cup titles.

The artist Andy Warhol summed it up best. “Pele was one of the few who contradicted my theory,” he said of the Santos superstar. “Instead of 15 minutes of fame, he will have 15 centuries.”

8

Roger Federer

Tennis

Cracking the top ten as of June 2025, Roger Federer takes his place among the greatest athletes in history. The Swiss won 103 singles titles on the ATP Tour, including 20 Grand Slams – eight of them coming at Wimbledon. Federer was the no.1 ranked men’s player for a total of 310 weeks, including a stint of a record 237 weeks consecutively.

His rivalries with the likes of Rafael Nadal, Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic captured the imagination of tennis fans, while his epic clash with Nadal in the Wimbledon final of 2008 is widely regarded as one of the greatest matches in tennis history. An almost five-hour titanic tussle would eventually see Nadal come out on top, but it was one of the rare occasions where Federer did not emerge victorious at Wimbledon.

7

Babe Ruth

Baseball

Arguably the most well-known baseball player of all time is a man who sadly passed away in 1948. Three-quarters of a century in Babe Ruth’s absence and he still remains the sport’s high watermark, which just goes to show the impact he had during his time in the batter’s box.

Ruth’s career in Major League Baseball lasted almost two decades and in that time he won the World Series on a staggering seven different occasions. With many other career honours under his belt, the icon of the sport was inducted into the Baseball Hame of Fame in 1936, shortly after he brought his career to a close.

6

Michael Phelps

Swimming

The most decorated Olympian of all time is the former swimmer Michael Phelps, who won a staggering total of 28 medals during his career. A swollen majority of those medals (23) were gold, which just goes to show how prolific a performer he was at his best.

Add to this a total of 27 gold medals in the World Championships and there was no competition within the sport of swimming when Phelps was around. He cleaned up almost all titles in sight before bowing out in 2016. The US icon credits his insatiable work rate for such unprecedented success. Phelps got in the pool at least once on more than 1,800 consecutive days as he strove “to do something that no one else had done before”.

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5

Wayne Gretzky

Ice Hockey

The ultimate Ice Hockey Hall of Famer, Wayne Gretzky, may be a slight surprise to come in at third in an all-time athletes list, but he did have an incredible career in his chosen field – or rink, to be more accurate.

The NHL’s all-time leading scorer spent almost a decade with the Edmonton Oilers before spending time with the Los Angeles Kings, St. Louis Blues and New York Rangers to see out his playing days. To underscore his untouchable standing among any individual to ever put on a set of skates, Gretzky’s iconic number 99 shirt was retired across the entire sport upon his retirement.

4

Usain Bolt

Athletics

Usain Bolt is looked upon as the greatest sprinter ever, with the Jamaican becoming a global star at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. Fuelled by a diet of McDonald’s chicken nuggets, Bolt broke his own world record in the 100m before surpassing Michael Johnson’s high watermark over 200m which had stood for more than a decade.

If the affable sprinter became a winner in Beijing, he established himself as an all-time icon over the subsequent eight years by repeatedly defending his titles at the Olympics and World Championships. At 6ft 5in, Bolt is built differently to any other successful sprinter, forever stumbling through his relatively inelegant starts before using those impossibly long limbs to burn beyond any other human in history.

3

Muhammad Ali

Boxing

With no real competition, Muhammed Ali is regarded as the greatest boxer of all time. Ali may not have been one of the hardest punchers, but his movement was unrivalled, dancing around the ring with a grace befitting a figure far smaller than his sculpted 6ft 3in frame. To borrow his own inimitable phrase, he would “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”.

Ali won 56 of his 61 professional fights, with 36 being via knockout. With only five losses to his name, he is one of the most successful men to have ever graced the sport to this day. An Olympic gold medal winner and three-time heavyweight champion of the world, Ali wouldn’t have been impressed with his second-place spot on this list. As the revolutionary activist who transcended the sport routinely insisted: “I am the greatest.”

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2

Diego Maradona

Diego Maradona is arguably the most naturally gifted footballer in history. There’s no question that he belongs in the conversation for the title of greatest player of all time alongside the likes of Pele and Messi.

But what sets Maradona apart from every other footballer is his god-like status both in Argentina and in Naples. A larger-than-life character who battled countless demons during his life before passing away aged 60 in 2020, El Diego means so much to so many people – so it shouldn’t come as a surprise to see him so high up these rankings.

Maradona produced arguably the greatest individual campaign in World Cup history at the 1986 World Cup finals in Mexico. During the same tournament, in the same game against England, he scored football’s most infamous goal (The Hand of God) and the goal of the century.

1

Michael Jordan

Basketball

The honour of being named the greatest athlete ever falls on the broad shoulders of Michael Jordan. The Chicago Bulls icon is almost unanimously voted as the greatest basketball player of all time after leading the organisation, which was described as a “travelling cocaine circus” during his rookie year, to six NBA Championships in eight years.

Jordan collected a record-breaking six NBA Finals MVP awards but took even greater pleasure in the fear which he inspired across the division. The ultimate all-rounder – who finished as the division’s leading scorer 10 times and was also voted Defensive Player of the Year in 1988 – was widely referred to as ‘Black Jesus’ by other players.