Often forgotten, but just as entertaining, if not more in some cases, are women's sports.

Women's sports have branched out so much in recent years that you can rarely find a sport that men play where women do not. Last week I focused on the top five male athletes. Now this week I will focus on the top five female athletes ever in sports.

This proved to be a very daunting task but after doing research these are the top five female athletes that I came up with – Mia Hamm (soccer), Steffi Graf (tennis), Jackie Joyner-Kersee (track), Annika Sorenstam (golf), and Martina Navratilova (tennis).

Holding down fifth place we have Martina Navratilova, a former world number one tennis player. So good was she that Billie Jean King, a former world number one player said she was the greatest single, doubles and mixed doubles player that ever lived.

Navratilova won 18 Grand Slam singles, 31 Grand Slam doubles and 10 Grand Slam mixed doubles.

She holds the record for the most singles titles – 167 – and doubles titles – 177. She received great praise from tennis historian and journalist Bud Collins, calling her the best tennis player of all time.

In fourth place, we have Mia Hamm, a retired American soccer player. Hamm was a forward for the United States women's national team for whom she scored more international goals than any other soccer player male or female in the history of the sport – 158. She was named FIFA World Player of the Year the first two times it was given in 2001 and 2002.

Mia was the youngest player ever to play for the national team at the age of 15. During her time with the national team she took home two World Cup Championships and two Olympic gold medals. So exceptional was she to her peers, she was named US Soccer Female Athlete of the Year from 1994 to 1998, a remarkable accomplishment. Her list of achievements goes on and on to the point that she was inducted into the National Soccer Hall of Fame in 2007.

Jackie Joyner-Kersie sits in third place and is rated by many as the best female athlete of all time.

Jackie has won three gold, one silver and two bronze medals at the Olympics, competing in long jump and the heptathlon. In 1986, during the Goodwill Games, Jackie became the first woman to score 7,000 points in the heptathlon.

However, two years later at the Olympics in Seoul, Korea she set a new world record in the heptathlon that still stands today of 7,291 points.

In 1988, Jackie formed the Jackie Joyner-Kersie Foundation, which provides youth, adults and females with resources to improve their quality of life. So great was she that Sports Illustrated for women voted Jackie Joyner-Kersie as the greatest female athlete of "all time".

The top two are always a battle and it is hard not to be biased here but they are without a doubt my two favourite female athletes for what they have accomplished.

Steffi Graf took tennis to another level while Annika Sorenstam brought women's golf to light. Who would be the number one?

Second place goes to Annika Sorenstam, the Swedish golfer, who retired in 2008.

Annika was so exceptional that she was the winner of a record eight Player of the Year awards and six Vare Trophies, which goes to the player with the lowest seasonal scoring average. Annika is the only female golfer to have shot a low round of 59.

She has officially won 72 LPGA tournaments, 10 of which were majors.

Annika tops the LPGA money list having wracked up over $22 million, some $8 million more than her closest rival. So skillful was Annika that she made history at the Bank of America Colonial in 2003 as the first woman to play in a men's PGA tour since 1945. By the end of 2008 Annika had won a massive 90 international tournaments making her the most successful female golfer ever.

The top spot goes to none other than Steffi Graf, a tennis icon.

Steffi won a massive 22 Grand Slam tournaments. She is the only player to have won all four Grand Slam tournaments – Wimbledon, the French Open, the US Open and the Australian Open four times each.

If that's not enough to convince you, in 1988 Steffi became the first and only tennis player (male or female) to achieve the Calendar Year Golden Slam, by winning all four Grand Slam titles and the Olympic gold medal all in the same calendar year. Need I say anymore!

Just to add to her accomplishments, Steffi Graf was ranked world number one by Women's Tennis Association for a record 377 weeks overall, but 186 weeks consecutively – the longest by any female.

Tennis writer Steve Flink and a group of experts from the Associate Press voted Steffi Graf as the best tennis player of the 20th century. To generously give something back to the sport and children, Steffi is the founder and chairperson of "Children for Tomorrow", a non-profit organisation that supports children.

One thing I have learned and have come to appreciate from doing these articles over the last two weeks is that all the top athletes have given something back to their sports or children in general.

We as sportsmen and sportswomen in Bermuda can learn from this as too often our great athletes just move on once they are finished and do not give anything back to the sport they once loved.

Bermuda sportsmen and sportswomen, wake up and give something back to our young generation. If we have to use sports as one of many avenues to recapture our young ones from the streets, then we all must play our part.

SPORTS EDITOR NOTE: Who are your top male and female athletes of all time? E-mail your choices to royalgazette@hotmail.com or arobson@royalgazette.bm and we'll be happy to publish them.