It is very difficult to compare athletes across very different kinds of sports to determine who is the best overall. It because it is difficult that at The Sportspedia we decided to create a formula where we would be able to compare the world’s best sportspeople and get an ultimate World Sport Ranking for the year 2020.
To to this we considered thousands of sportspeople form over 150 sports – virtually from every organized form of sport. We designed formulas and gathered sports data where we could weigh Excellence in Performance (60%) for the year and Historical Significance in their results (40%), with mover 30 variables measuring those factors. We further explain the formula here.
All of the analysis is numerical, meaning the result is not the personal opinion from anyone at The Sportspedia. We are rather glad to say that the list of the 100 best athletes in the world makes sense.
NBA Champion, 17-time All-Star and and multiple record-breaker, LeBron James (USA), is the World’s best sportsperson for the year 2020, followed by 36-time Tennis Masters Winner Novak Djokovic (SRB) and 56-time World Champion Trials Rider Toni Bou (ESP).
The best Female Sportsperson is #6 Sue Bird (USA), who reached an all-time joint-record of 4 WNBA titles. The best sportsperson with a disability is #22 Sarah Storey (ENG), who won 3 Para Cycling World Titles and now has 38 in total, an all-time record.
The Sportspedia 100 List represents athletes from 34 countries that competed in 39 sports and represent every permanently inhabited continent. Every single one of them has been a World Champion or equivalent and the majority already place among the all-time best in their disciplines, sports and/or group of sports. Several had the best season in the history of their sports.
Indeed some great athletes are missing and some sports are as well. This could be explained due to the fact that in some instances the current World Champions are still not among the all-time greats in their disciplines, that the major competitions were suspended due to covid-19, and/or because literally there are more sports we analyzed than places on the list. However we made sure not to miss any sports in the analysis – from Indian Kambala to Argentinian Pato to Irish Handball.
Enjoy the full list here and feel free to leave us any comments you might have.
