Ashrita Furman: Greatest Athlete Ever?

If a reputable organization created a list of the top hundred currently active athletes, it would probably be dominated by stars of the NBA and NFL. Some baseball players would get on, probably even less hockey players, and at least one or two soccer players depending on whether the poll was conducted in the USA or not. There would also be some prominent Olympic athletes, a boxer or two, possibly even a pro wrestler, and the elite of sedentary sports such as Tiger Woods and Kobayashi and maybe even a poker player. But arguably the greatest athlete in recorded history probably wouldn't get any consideration.

Those considered to be the best athletes are generally the most solid performers competing against other great athletes with a sizable audience watching. Ashrita Furman doesn't display his athletic prowess in front of large audiences, which is probably because although what he does is extremely impressive it would probably make very boring television as well and watching him live probably isn't worth the travel by plane and foot necessary to do so. As for competing against other great athletes, the previous holders of records broken by Ashrita Furman were probably in amazing physical condition, but it is much harder to appreciate a competition in which the two competitors aren't anywhere near each other and most likely never have been. Also, he seems to have been too busy lately breaking records to spend time publicizing his accomplishments so most people don't know about them. But they should.

I knew about Ashrita Furman, at least in the back of my head, ever since I read about him in the Guinness Book of World Records and was surprised would consciously try to set records to that extent which at the time was slightly less than a dozen. Then I was checking something in Wikipedia which led to checking something else and before I knew it I was at his home page in awe of the record setting tear that Mr. Furman has been on lately. About 50 in the past two years. Some are fairly ridiculous things that he can do better than anyone else who officially tried, but others are feats of endurance that make Lance Armstrong seem almost human.

What he's done seems worthy of a Chuck Norris-esque cult of personality, but his achievements would be hard to exaggerate when the truth is so mind-bogglingly impressive. Most people can't run a mile in less than eight minutes. Most people can't juggle. He did both at the same time. He also ran fifty miles while juggling (joggling) in less than nine hours. He ran a mile with an empty milk bottle on his head in under eight minutes, and I don't know if I could run a mile in that time with an empty milk bottle in my hand if I drank the contents of the bottle first. Maybe I'll try it someday. As for the records that he holds, I don't see any of them as being in reach no matter how much I train. He pushed a two ton van for a mile in about 20 minutes - I can't push a two ton van. The list goes on and on and on, and you can find it at www.ashrita.com . You may never look at pencils the same way again.