In the second part of the countdown of Daley Thompson's top ten sporting Britains, here are numbers five down to one.
5. Sir Nick Faldo - Recently back in the news following his Ryder Cup comments about Sergio Garcia, his prowess and steely determination on the world's golf courses is perhaps what we should best remember him for. Although it is Rory McIlroy who seems to dominate the game these days, he still has some way to go before he overtakes Faldo's record of six Major titles (three Opens and three Masters) across the late 1980s and 1990s, with an enviable spell of 97 weeks as World Number One.
Meticulous in his preparation, at one time employing the services of David Leadbetter in an attempt to improve his swing, his Ryder Cup playing record is exemplary and prior to Sergio Garcia he had been the youngest player at 20 to take part in the event. He has won the most points by any player in the event's history (25) and represented Europe a record 11 times, although his experience as team captain at Valhalla in 2008 was less successful as the USA defeated the Europeans 16.5 - 11.5 to regain the famous prize (Europe of course have subsequently claimed it back). These days, he mainly provides golfing analysis for sports' broadcasters, especially in America where he is now based, besides travelling across the world to assist in the design and development of golf courses.
4. Jayne Torville and Christopher Dean - It may seem an odd choice to include what was basically a 'partnership' in sport, but no one who witnessed their brilliance at the time can doubt the impact and appeal to the British public created by their most famous ice dancers. In that sense it makes sense to class them as 'one', as they are inseparable when you consider their sporting and dancing achievements.
From their homage to Barnum through to the almost balletic and mesmerising performance to the strains of Ravel's Bolero, their sheer brilliance across the ice enraptured the TV viewing audiences in the 1980s as they won British, European, World and Winter Olympics' titles and has led to numerous shows across the world after their competition days ended.
The judges in 1984 at the Winter Olympics in Sarajevo were so enraptured that they gave them twelve perfect 6.0s, a record for a single programme. A new audience has been introduced to them through the popular TV show "Dancing on Ice", where they cast an eye over the numerous Celebrities who try their hand at ice dancing and see just how difficult it is to master the sport.
3. Gareth Edwards and Jonathan Edwards ("The Edwards") - this grouping of two sporting greats who share a surname but are not related, is an indication of how difficult it is to define (just) a top ten. Nevertheless, both excelled in their respective sports. Gareth is viewed by many rugby luminaries as being perhaps the greatest rugby union player there has ever been at scrum-half for Wales and the British Lions during the 1970s.
He was part of the great Welsh team that won three Grand Slams, in a period where they dominated what was then the Five Nations (it has since been expanded to six to include Italy) winning the title seven times in all. He was also a crucial member of the Lions' side that famously won the series in New Zealand in 1971 and of the 1974 vintage that went undefeated in South Africa. No one who has ever seen it can ever forget perhaps the best try of all time that Gareth scored for the Barbarians against the All Blacks in 1973 at Cardiff.
Jonathan can justifiably be rated as the greatest triple jumper of all time with a world record that has stood since 1995 at 18.29m, as he mirrored a skimming pebble across the runway in performing the three phases almost seamlessly in Gothenburg.
He won all of the major titles available to him in winning on the Olympic, World, European and Commonwealth stages during his career and amassed a staggering fourteen major games' medals (indoors and outdoors) in total. Jonathan can now be seen mainly on BBC Sport as a presenter and commentator.
2. Sir Ian Botham - it is testament to the ability and perhaps notoriety of "Beefy" that whenever a new cricketing all rounder appears on the world scene, he is commonly labelled as the "new" Ian Botham. They would be better served in dispensing with the comparison to a genius with bat (over 5000 Test and 2000 ODI runs) , ball (383 Test, still the English record, and 145 ODI wickets ) and in taking so many astounding catches (120 Test and 36 ODI).
He was simply a one off who could turn a game on its head with either a fiery bowling spell or a typically belligerent batting display. The Ashes of 1981 will be forever linked with the feats of Botham, whether that be from an inswinging Yorker to knock out the middle stump or the dismissal of the legendary Australian fast bowler Dennis Lillee into the stands for six during a quickfire batting display. When he played he demanded attention and served up a banquet in return. Not that he was an angel in any sense, with front page headlines following his career just as much as his epic efforts out in the middle. He also turned out occasionally as a centre-half in the Football League for Scunthorpe United.
The caring and generous side of his nature has been ably demonstrated by his raising over £12 million from his famous charity walks across the country. Now a cricket pundit for Sky, he continues to share his insights into the game and will no doubt do so for many years to come.
1. Lord Sebastian Coe - In recent years he received the "thanks" of a nation when he gained and delivered the 2012 London Olympics, a Games that many believe was amongst the greatest of all time, especially from the perspective of the British public. Not to downplay his own Athletics' career under the tutelage of his father, Peter, which garnered two Olympic 1500m titles, and two Olympic silvers over 800m, at a time when he was setting numerous World Records (eight outdoors, 3 indoors) across the tracks of Europe.
His epic rivalry with Steve Ovett during the Moscow Olympics of 1980 has been passed to folklore, as has the trading of world records in and around that time between the two in much the same way as they shared the golds at 800m and 1500m in Moscow. He shone at a time when British men's middle distance running was the envy of the world (including Steve Cram besides Ovett) and many aspiring youngsters were driven on to excellence of their own by the races he ran and the times he achieved. A return of eight medals from Olympic and European Games is impressive, but maybe tinged with regret that it wasn't even more given his undoubted talent, especially over 800m where he never won a global title, but did win a European title (finally) in 1986.
After hanging up his spikes, Coe turned his attention to politics and became a Conservative MP. However his true love of sport was never far from the surface and he has returned to that in the role of vice- president of the IAAF and Chairman of the British Olympic Association.
Having completed the top ten, the list generates considerable debate over all the great sporting Brits who didn't make the grade in Daley's eyes. Of course, his own name would have featured prominently if possible, giving his decathlon dominance across the best part of a decade. There were no footballers included, as the likes of Bobby Charlton, George Best, Bobby Moore and the rest received no mention. Sir Steven Redgrave and Matthew Pinsent from the world of rowing do not feature, neither does Olympic and Tour de France winner Sir Bradley Wiggins (yet Chris Hoy does) in cycling.
Of course it does not really matter as any such list is subjective and different people will have different notions as to what makes someone a sporting great. What one can't doubt is that the ten who did make it on to Daley's list were indeed among the best that Britain has ever produced.
