Georges St-Pierre Among ESPN’s Top 100 Athletes of the 21st Century

UFC Hall of Famer and former two-time champion Georges St-Pierre has been recognized by ESPN as one of the best athletes of the 2000s.

With 2024 marking the 25th year of the 21st century, ESPN.com began unveiling its list of the 100 greatest athletes of the 21st century on Monday, with St-Pierre ranked No. 76.

St-Pierre, who was named MMA Junkie’s greatest UFC fighter of all time last year in honor of the promotion’s 30th anniversary, announced his retirement in early 2019, just months after ending a four-year retirement to claim the middleweight championship from then-champion Michael Bisping at UFC 217. Winning a title in a second division only cemented St-Pierre’s legendary status, as he had spent more than five years as the UFC welterweight champion, during which he made nine consecutive title defenses. During his heyday, St-Pierre was the UFC’s biggest pay-per-view draw and helped put Canadian MMA on the map.

ESPN has only announced the first 25 athletes (Nos. 100-76) and will announce 25 each day this week through Thursday.

St-Pierre is ahead of big names like Bryce Harper (baseball, 79), Chris Paul (basketball, 83), Kawhi Leonard (basketball, 85), Venus Williams (tennis, 86), Aaron Rodgers (soccer, 91), Pedro Martinez (baseball, 92), Rory McIlroy (golf, 93) and Zlatan Ibrahimovic (soccer, 95).

ESPN said the list only took into account athletic achievements since Jan. 1, 2000. ESPN.com used a panel of experts and ESPN’s renowned Stats & Information Group to rank the top 100 athletes across all sports. More than 75,000 votes were cast by ESPN’s reporters, analysts, producers, editors and experts around the world to narrow the original list of 400 athletes down to 100.