Bolt and Fraser-Pryce Named Among ESPN’s 100 Greatest Athletes

Jamaica’s Olympic icons Usain Bolt and Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce have been named among the 100 greatest athletes of the 21st century by top American sports network ESPN.

The sport broadcasting powerhouse listed Bolt as the ninth greatest athlete of the century while Fraser-Pryce enters the list at number 77.

Bolt who is arguably the greatest sprinter of all times, holds the men’s 100- and 200-metre world records at 9.58 seconds and 19.19 seconds, respectively, both set at the 2009 World Athletics Championships in Berlin.

He’s the only sprinter to win the sprint double title at three consecutive Olympic Games.

Among other greats on the list are U.S swimmer Michael Phelps who is ranked number one, tennis star Serena Williams, football legend Lionel Messi, NBA’s LeBron James, NFL’s Tom Brady, another tennis great, Swiss Roger Federer, American gymnast, Simone Byles, and former PGA Tour number-one Tiger Woods.

Fraser-Pryce Affectionately called the ‘Pocket Rocket’, is a two-time Olympic gold medallist over 100 metres, her first in 2008 in Beijing made her the first, woman from the Caribbean to win gold in the blue riband sprint.

Fraser-Pryce, who along with Bolt, are two of three athletics professionals on the list, is just ahead of the oldest boxing world champion at 49 years’ old, Bernard Hopkins, and lies behind mixed martial artist Georges St Pierre.

American 200- and 400-metre specialist Allyson Felix, at 63, is the other athlete on the list.

According to ESPN, experts in individual sports were asked to vote to rank the top athletes in their sport since January 1, 2000 (no accomplishments before this date were to be considered).

Those votes pared down pools in each sport to lists of 10 to 25 athletes each, which constituted the overall candidate pool for the top athletes of the 21st century so far. Each voter was presented two randomly selected names and asked to pick which one had the better career in the 21st century. Across repeated, randomised head-to-head matchups, more than 70,000 votes were cast at this stage, and using an Elo rating system, the list was pared down from 262 to 100. That list was then evaluated by a panel of experts for any inconsistencies or oversights, resulting in the top 100 ranking.