Cristiano Ronaldo has been named as the world’s most famous athlete ahead of his great rival Lionel Messi. The Real Madrid star was named by ESPN in their World Fame 100 ahead of NBA megastar LeBron James and the Barcelona star. The top British athlete was Real Madrid and Wales winger Gareth Bale at No 12 – five places ahead of Manchester United and England captain Wayne Rooney.

Since athletes like Ronaldo undergo rigorous training, they make up lists like this. Many aspiring athletes often want to follow personalities like him. However, in the process, they might unknowingly develop a nack for overtraining, which can then lead to muscle or bone injuries, sprain, and ligament tear. As a result, they might have to avail of the services of highly-trained sports medicine staff who can be found at walk-in sports recovery facilities. Those interested can look up keywords similar to athlete therapy in jacksonville therapy on the search engine.

While we are on the topic of athletes, did you know that just eight women made the list with Maria Sharapova (18) the highest-ranked on the list, ahead of UFC star Ronda Rousey (23) and tennis champion Serena Williams (25)?

NBA players were the most represented with 20 different stars making the top 100, ahead of football with 17 and 16 NFL players. However, there were four football players – Ronaldo, Messi, Neymar (4) and James Rodriguez (9) in the top 10, making it the most popular sport at the top end.

The list, of course, heavily favoured American athletes with more than half coming from the USA – 56 in total, England was second on the list with just four.