I think so. 3 majors and the prospect of more to come is some going and he must be the best ever in terms of competing in an individual discipline.
Who would rival him for the accolade?
They had a poll on this on Today FM this morning and Paddy was beaten into second place by Sean Kelly - Roy Keane was third, Sonia fourth and Stephen Roche and Michelle Smith in joint 5th.
take away the drugs cloud over cycling and Roche first, harrington second, Kelly third, keane 4th
Michelle Smith, fucking hell, are people still that fucking naieve?!
Kelly and Roche are up there. Its difficult to compare individiual and team sports.
While they’ll never get the recognition, I think the likes of Ruby Walsh and Tony McCoy are every bit as good at their chosen sport as any of the names mentioned above.
Fully agree with you Mac but they wouldn’t have the global recognition of the others.
Michelle Smith’s a proven cheat so she should be discounted. Apologies to Jimmy Magee and Cathal Dervan if they’re reading this. George Best would be up there too. It’s difficult to compare team players to individuals though.
Irish or British?
Did anybody read the article with Bill O’Herlihy in one of the Sunday magazines there a few weeks back? It went into detail about how RTE had to deal with the whole Michelle Smith contorversy. They knew before the games even began that the whole thing was going to blow up but were warned not to mention it until the proof came out. He said they tried to imply it as much as legally possible without actually mentioning it durnig the course of the games (i.e. playing the alison wagner interview in full etc).
During the last olympics one of the panelists mentioned Michael Carruth (I think?) as being our last olympic gold medalist, when they went to a break there was a phone call from Michelle Smiths solicitor demanding they correct the statement or there would be legal action.
It was an interesting read.
It was in the wonderful Tribune Sport Monthly, Mad About Sport. great read, I think Billo showed up what we all know about her in that.
Ya was pleasantly surprised by it.
He said his most embarrasing moment was when it came back to the studio after Carl Lewis had been chastising Ben Johnson and Bill came out with:
“Now there’s a man who calls a spade a spade”
I’d give Kelly the nod ahead of Harrington. He was World no.1 for six years running and has the second most race wins of all time. Harringtons records are all followed by “for a european”
Would Harrington have won 3 majors if Woods had not been injured? Debate that could be argued for ever. Not taking anything away from Paddy but some people would argue that the major wins are tarnished due to Tiger not being there. Still, you can only beat whats in front of you.
Woods was there for his 1st.
Other people have won Majors when Woods wasnt there and get the credit, Paddy should too. Woods cant dominate every event he goes into.
There is no debate and anyone who wants to start it is begruding fook.
Woods was there for his first one. As for the last two Harrington was immense on the last 9 in particular and blew the rest of the field out of the water which is all he could have done. Now let’s hear it for an Irish sports person who is on the very top of his game worldwide.
As for Ireland’s greatest sports star I think it is a fairly sad indictment of the quality of ‘stars’ we have produced to think that someone who wins three golf majors could jump straight to the top of the list.
That said I think Ronnie Delaney winning gold in the 1500 metres in 1956 was a tremendous achievement…
I wasn’t being cheeky or looking to politicise the debate but I recognise anyone from this here island as being Irish. I adopt an Irish rugby team style attitude to things in this regard.
[quote=“farmerinthecity”]There is no debate and anyone who wants to start it is begruding fook.
Woods was there for his first one. As for the last two Harrington was immense on the last 9 in particular and blew the rest of the field out of the water which is all he could have done. Now let’s hear it for an Irish sports person who is on the very top of his game worldwide.
As for Ireland’s greatest sports star I think it is a fairly sad indictment of the quality of ‘stars’ we have produced to think that someone who wins three golf majors could jump straight to the top of the list.
That said I think Ronnie Delaney winning gold in the 1500 metres in 1956 was a tremendous achievement…[/quote]
Its one I’ve seen argued after he won the British Open this year. To be honest, I’d agree with you farmer that yer man arguing against Harrington is a begrudging fuck. His putts last night on 16, 17 and 18 were unreal. Hopefully this is just the start of something special.
Harrington is in the form of his life at the moment. Would Tiger live with him? That is the question. Harrington is at his peak now, aged 36 ish. If he had been converting those 2nd places he used to be getting to wins and had the level of confidence a few years back that he has now, would Tiger still only have had to turn up to win majors?
It’s all conjecture. When Tiger is back next year and he goes head to head with our boy we will see.
I think Terry Phelan would give him a run for his money any day
Hes no Paul Butler, thats for sure.