Verstappen and American star named 'greatest living athletes' on popular podcast

Max Verstappen has been held up as a candidate for the title of 'greatest living athlete' on a popular sports podcast.

The Ringer founder Bill Simmons posed the question on his podcast after Sunday night's NFL playoff games, challenging his fellow podcaster Sal 'Cousin Sal' Iacono to name anyone on Patrick Mahomes' level after the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback led his team to a fourth Super Bowl berth in five seasons.

Novak Djokovic was ruled out of the conversation thanks to his Australian Open loss to Jannik Sinner, with the likes of LeBron James and other stars from soccer, baseball, tennis and boxing.

Verstappen has won the last three Formula 1 world championships, taking a record 19 wins from 22 races in 2023, and is showing no signs of slowing down.

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'Verstappen's the guy in F1'

Speculating on whether Mahomes could win a third Super Bowl next month, Simmons said: "I was thinking the cross-sport stratosphere becomes kinda interesting at that point. Comparing him to basketball players, baseball players, soccer, tennis. You're talking about 'is this our greatest living athlete?' comes into play at that point."

He clarified: "I'm talking about current stars in different sports, he's holding the championship belt."

Iacono suggested Djokovic and 'Vanstappen [sic], that F1 guy' and while Simmons pushed back on the Serbian tennis star, he brought in producer Steve Ceruti to give a second opinion on Verstappen.

"It's Verstappen, Verstappen's the guy in F1. And everything's no fun."

Succinctly put.

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