Track and Field is the best sport there is

Thanks for the argument, con. So first I will rebut the opponents arguments. Athleticism and skill Your claim that the top ten lists are "reliable sources" to tell which athletes are the best is false. All three sites (two are actually the same site) are very subjective lists, containing only opinions as basis for argument. No scientific knowledge was lent to either list. While I will give a small amount of credit to the bleacher report sources, as they are at least written by a sports journalist with some amount of knowledge of sports, thetoptens.com is a completely unreliable source. It relies on biased mass authority, where only people who visit that site can vote on which athlete is the best. If you look down the list, I would concur it should be entitled "most well-known athletes of all time." Therefore these sources can be mostly discredited, especially the third. If mass authority is given credit, then the title of "Greatest athlete in the world" given to Ashton Eaton, the Olympic decathlon champion, should count for something. The ESPN report is also somewhat subjective, though much less than the above two reports. Although it was conducted by experts, the rankings were solely based from opinion and no scientific testing. Therefore this cannot be used as scientific proof that boxing is the most difficult sport. Track and field exists as the purest test of an athletes athletic ability. It gives specific numbers (times, distances thrown, heights jumped, etc.) to demonstrate which athlete is the best. Almost all other "he is the best athlete of all time" arguments are subjective. Debates may rage over whether LeBron or MJ is better, but Usain Bolt, due to his world record time of 9.58, is the fastest 100 meter runner of all time, definitively. And isn't the point of a sport to test which athlete is better? Track is a definitive test of this. Elements of track and field are used in other sports as well. A very critical part of the NFL draft is the 40 yard dash, which originally stemmed from track. Many sports also run to train themselves. Another point con brought up was that track and field athletes spend years mastering one event. This is not always true. Decathletes, such as Ashton Eaton, must master 10 different events and perform all at world-class standards. Jeremy Wariner, a world-class 400 meter runner (the 400 meters is a sprint requiring anaerobic energy) , has just announced he will move up to the 800 meters, widely considered a middle distance race, where both aerobic and anaerobic energy are needed. I even have a friend who is not a decathlete, who throws shot put and discus, runs the 110 and 300 meter hurdles, and runs the 100, 200, 400, and 800 meters. Now for popularity. While soccer is definitely a very popular sport worldwide, it does not have the appeal of track and field. I will ask you to think of THE biggest sporting event in the world. While the World Cup is definitely huge, that distinction definitely goes to the Olympics, which is the worlds largest and most prestigious sporting event. Here's a quote: "The Olympics remain the most compelling search for excellence that exists in sport, and maybe in life itself." - Dawn Fraser (Australian swimmer, 3-time winner at the Olympics) Now what is the most-watched, most talked about event at the Olympics? Athletics (also known as track and field). There were more articles written about athletics in the 2004 Olympics in Athens than any other sport, and Usain Bolt was the most mentioned athlete on twitter during the 2012 Olympic Games. 3 of the top 5 Olympic moments on twitter in the 2012 Olympics were track and field moments. [http://www.topendsports.com...] Track and Field best displays to the world the triumph of the human being that is the object of the Olympics. Lastly, one more argument. All other sports stem from track. Track was the first sport, created to test human athletic ability. It tested athletes ability to throw with strength and accuracy, run fast, jump high, and be able to persevere through long distances. All other sports are just extensions in various ways of this. The events of track and field encompass the basic movements of all other sports. Without the base that is track, other sports would not exist. The con has not, to this point, given definitive proof that track and field is not the best sport that exists. Therefore I believe my argument still stands. Back to you, good luck!