Speed is an asset in almost any game, and the fastest players are usually among the best. But who were the fastest players across all games? Comparing players across sports is always a sketchy business, and it will be downright unthinkable when, say, speed on the base paths is facing speed on hockey skates. Nevertheless, the topic of who had the most speed in history is a great argument feed, herein, one exceptionally emotional glance at the fastest athletes throughout the entire existence of any game.
The Fastest Players in Sports History
1. Usain Bolt, Track
The undisputed fastest man on the planet, Usain Bolt, shattered his own reality record in the 100 meters with a period of 9.58 seconds in 2009. Bolt has established the last three worldwide bests in the occasion, and his present record is 0.16 seconds faster than Asafa Powell’s past mark.
For the football fans out there, a good guess from Bolt’s 9.58 time puts his 40-yard dash time at 3.83.
2. Jackie Robinson, Baseball
Jackie Robinson is adored as perhaps the greatest player in baseball history. Still, the individuals who saw him at UCLA say baseball wasn’t nearly the most grounded of the four games he lettered in.
A track and football star who blossomed with speed and touchiness, Robinson channeled his talents into turning into the most energizing sprinter baseball had at any point seen.
Robinson drove the NL in steals twice and famously recorded 19 steals of home. Rumors from far and wide suggest that TV producers created the split-screen to watch Robinson play with pitchers on the base paths.
3. Jesse Owens, Track
As brilliant as Jesse Owens was at the Berlin Olympics in 1936, his greatest performance may have come a year earlier.
At the 1935 Big Ten track championships, Owens (going after Ohio State) tied the world record in the 100 yards and set worldwide bests in the long leap, 220 yards, and 220-yard low obstacles… in the space of an hour.
His four gold medals in Berlin were an unpleasant reality for a Nazi German government attempting to claim all black people were substandard no matter what.
4. Carl Lewis, Track
One of America’s generally accomplished and most cherished runners, Carl Lewis won nine gold medals (10 medals total) throughout four Olympic appearances. Lewis tied or broke the world record in the 100 meters multiple times in his career, with his best performance in 1991 at 9.86 seconds.
Lewis was also one of the top long-jumpers ever, and his 8.87-meter exertion in 1991 is the second-best low-altitude performance of all time.
5. Bo Jackson, Football/Baseball
Chop down too early by a hip physical issue, and Bo Jackson was one of the fastest and most energizing sprinters in football history. Emerging from Auburn, he was planned at 4.13 seconds in the 40 at the join, and rare sorts of people who saw him on the field doubted that he really was that fast.
In Jackson’s four NFL seasons, he had long runs of 91, 92, and 88 yards and averaged as many as 6.8 yards per carrying while always failing to record less than 500 yards in a season.
Bo would’ve gotten much greater out of his speed on the baseball field if it hadn’t been for his dismal .309 career OBP.
6. Rickey Henderson, Baseball
When it goes to the value of speed in baseball, Exhibit An is Rickey Henderson. The career leader in steals by more than 300, Henderson utilized his base-running dominance to get perhaps the most strong hostile weapons in the game.
Henderson also holds the major league record for steals in a season, with 130 out of 1982. He made his steals check, as well, breaking Ty Cobb’s record with 2,295 runs scored in his career.
7. Asafa Powell, Track
Asafa Powell has been one of the cleanest and most predictable contenders in a game dogged by repeated performance-enhancing drug scandals. He set a worldwide best in the 100 meters with a period of 9.77 seconds in 2005, equaled it twice the following year, and then finished it with a 9.74-second performance in 2007.
Even though wounds have plagued Powell as of late, he figured out time in 2010 to break the world record in the 100 yards, setting the new mark at 9.07 seconds.
8. Bounce Hayes, Track/Football
Sway Hayes was already an international star when he entered the NFL, having won gold in the 100 meters (in which he already held the world record) in the 1964 Olympics. “Slug Bob” had minimal football experience when the Cowboys drafted him in 1964 as a wide beneficiary.
Hayes would be one of the rare examples of overcoming adversity of the track-to-football change, establishing a Dallas standard for accepting TDs (12) in his first season of genius football. He would play all but four games of his Hall of Fame career in a Dallas uniform and amassed 371 career catches for 7,414 yards.
He averaged 20 yards or better per catch multiple times, leading the league twice (counting a career-high 26.1 in 1970).
9. Darrell Green, Football
Darrell Green was generally viewed as the NFL’s fastest man, even before winning the opposition of that name (in which he had a 4-0 career record).
A track All-American at Texas A&M-Kingsville, Green had one of the longest and best careers of any corner ever. He caught a pass in an NFL record of 19 sequential seasons with the Redskins.
10. Florence Griffith-Joyner, Track
With her long fingernails and equally outsized personality, Florence Griffith-Joyner became perhaps the greatest VIP throughout the entire existence of ladies’ athletics. Flo-Jo backed up her style with the substance on the track, where she earned the world’s fastest woman title.
Flo-Jo actually holds the ladies’ reality records in both the 100 and 200 meters. Her Olympic record 10.54-second 100 meter run in 1988 gave her success by a full 0.3 seconds.
11. Willie Gault, Track/Football
An Olympic-caliber runner who missed out on the U.S. blacklist in 1980, Willie Gault went to his “other” sport. The All-America wideout went from Tennessee to the Chicago Bears in the 1983 draft.
Even though Gault never beat 50 catches in a season, he averaged better than 20 yards per gathering multiple times in his NFL career.
He earned a Super Bowl ring as an individual from the 1985 Bears.
12. Deion Sanders, Football/Baseball
At Florida State, Deion Sanders set the standard for Seminoles football with a 4.23 40 time. He didn’t back off after leaving Tallahassee, utilizing his superior speed to dominate as an NFL corner while also having a strong baseball career.
Sanders was a famously helpless tackler, but the recently printed Hall of Famer made such countless plays on guard and as a returner that coaches would in general neglect his deficiencies.
13. Lou Brock, Baseball
There have been many great leadoff men who have come after him, but Lou Brock actually stands as quite possibly the most dominant in baseball history. His 118 steals in 1974 areas yet the NL record for a season, and his 938 steals rank second in major-league history.
Brock wasn’t any slump with the bat, either, completing his career with 3,023 base hits.
14. DeAngelo Hall, Football
The champ of the 2005 NFL’s Fastest Man rivalry, DeAngelo Hall, has been dazzling fans with his speed all through his football career. At Virginia Tech, Hall set a school standard in the 40-yard dash with a jaw-dropping 4.15 seconds.
Hall also shares the NFL record with four capture attempts in a single game (last season against Chicago). He took one of the captures 92 yards for a TD.
15. Jim Thorpe, Track/Football/Baseball
Broadly regarded as one of the greatest all-around athletes of all time, Jim Thorpe won Olympic gold in the pentathlon and decathlon with triumphs on eight of the 15 individual occasions.
His speed on the football field persuaded Pop Warner, his coach at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School, to develop the single-wing offense that would dominate football for quite a long time.
In addition to his Hall of Fame NFL career, Thorpe played six seasons of Major League Baseball, generally as a Giant.
16. Champ Bailey, Football
Emerging from Georgia in 1999, it wasn’t simply Champ Bailey’s expertise as a corner that caught scouts’ eyes. His dazzling 4.28 40 times at the exploring consolidate turned more than a couple of heads, as well.
Bailey has established himself as perhaps the most dominant corner in the league for over a decade now. His 10 Pro Bowl appearances are a record for the position.
17. Allen Iverson, Basketball
Perhaps the most dominant scorers in NBA history, Allen Iverson played far greater than his 6’0″ frame. Iverson seems to lock for the Hall of Fame when he gets qualified, having won four scoring titles in his dazzling career.
Iverson’s blazing rate didn’t simply get him to the edge. He also drove the league in steals twice in his career.
18. Ty Cobb, Baseball
Hardly any players in baseball history have gotten (or cultivated) as much ill will as Hall of Famer Ty Cobb, but equally few could match his speed on the field. In addition to giving him outstanding range in the focus field, Cobb’s wheels helped make him one of the all-time great base stealers.
He’s fourth on the career list with 897 steals. Obviously, his habit of sharpening his spikes before games also contributed to the difficulty of halting him on the base paths.
19. Herschel Walker, Football
One of history’s most versatile athletes, Herschel Walker, made his name in football, where he had one of the great school careers of all-time at Georgia before earning a pair of Pro Bowl billets with the Cowboys.
He was also an All-American in track at Georgia, running the 60-yard dash in 6.15 seconds.
Walker’s combination of speed and strength would assist him with earning a spot in the 1992 Olympics on the U.S. toboggan team (he completed seventh), and he’s as of now attempting to make still another career for himself as an MMA warrior.
20. Bobby Hull, Hockey
Perhaps the fastest skater hockey had at any point seen, and Bobby Hull earned the nickname “The Golden Jet.” His devastating breakaway ability assisted him with turning into the primary NHL player to score more than 50 goals in a season, a feat he accomplished multiple times.
The frame would complete his Hall of Fame career (the great majority of it with the Blackhawks) with 610 goals, and 1,170 total focuses.
21. Ronaldo, Soccer
The three-time FIFA player of the year, Brazilian superstar Ronaldo is at the front of the line of soccer’s all-time great players. Even though he would battle weight later in his career, thriving, he had as much speed as any player in soccer history.
Ronaldo will be given a farewell match for the Brazilian side in June, cordial against Romania.
22. Jim Brown, Football
The most dominant running back in NFL history, Jim Brown, was unmatched in either power or speed during his brilliant career. Earthy colored’s 5.2 yards-per-carry average for his career is the most elevated ever for a player with more than 1,000 attempts.
Rumors have spread far and wide, suggesting that the lacrosse rule expecting players to rotate their sticks while running with the ball was imagined to back Brown off enough to allow rivals a battling opportunity.
23. Elroy “Crazylegs” Hirsch, Football
One of the NFL’s first game-breaking wide beneficiaries, Crazylegs Hirsch, was the heart and soul of the Rams offense during the 1950s. In 1951, Hirsch drove the league in gatherings (by seven), getting yards (by 669), accepting TDs (by five), yards per catch (by 2.3), and longest gathering (by six).
Hirsch helped carry the Rams to four NFL championship games. However, they won only a single time.
24. Willie Mays, Baseball
Sportswriting great Jim Murray called Willie Mays’ glove “where triples go to pass on.” His legendary catch in the 1954 World Series is only one example of his ability to patrol focus field at the Polo Grounds, where the wall was an infamous 483 feet from home plate.
Mays also utilized his legs to great advantage on the base paths, stealing 338 bases in his career and leading the league in steals multiple times straight, starting in 1956.
25. Calvin Murphy, Basketball
Even though perhaps best associated with his accomplishments while standing still at the free-toss line (career .892 shooter), Calvin Murphy was probably the fastest guard the NBA has at any point seen. Standing simply 5’9″, the Rockets star averaged as many as 25.6 focuses and 7.4 assists in a season.
Murphy is the briefest player in the Basketball Hall of Fame.