Richie Porte's Tour de France success has prompted debate over whether he can lay claim to being Tasmania's best ever cyclist.

Michael Grenda won an Olympic gold medal, Danny Clark and Amy Cure were multiple world champions and Matt Goss won more Grand Tour stages and a monument classic, but for his decade-long record in the world's biggest stage races, Porte would have to be a strong pretender to that particular crown.

A podium finish in his 15^th Grand Tour follows two wins at both Paris-Nice (2013, '15) and Tour Down Under (2017, '20) plus others at Tour de Romandie (2017), Volta a Catalunya (2015), Tour de Suisse (2018), Giro del Trentino (2015) and Volta ao Algarve (2012).

But another world-class display in the same week suggested the broader reach of Tasmanian sport.

Around the time Porte was fighting back from a puncture in south-eastern France, on the other side of the Alps, Stewart McSweyn was climbing his own mountains, continuing his methodical mission to claim Craig Mottram's Australian records and ultimately usurp him as the country's greatest middle-distance athlete.

While yet to compete at an Olympic Games, the King Islander's record both against the clock and at world championship level would surely have him pushing for the honour of Tasmania's best track and field performer.

McSweyn's times of 3:30.51 in Doha on Friday and 7:28.02 in Rome's Stadio Olimpico a week earlier saw him add the 1500 and 3000-metre national records to the 10,000m he claimed with a time of 27:23.80 in Melbourne last December.

Here's a quirky but staggering stat, courtesy of Athletics Australia's statisticians.

If McSweyn could take another 0.51 off his 1500m, he would join Moroccan Said Aouita as the only human beings to go under 3:30 for the 1500m, 7:30 for 3000m and 27:30 for 10,000m.

Endurance runners tend to specialise either in the shorter, glamour distances of 800 and 1500m - think Mottram, Seb Coe, Steve Ovett - or the longer gut-busters over 5000, 10,000m or beyond - think virtually anybody born in Kenya.

To be among the best in the world at both is as impressive as it is rare.

Hamish Peacock has claimed silver and bronze medals at Commonwealth Games, Tristan Thomas won a world championship bronze medal and made an Olympic semi-final, and 64 years after landing a silver medal in Melbourne, Commonwealth champ David Lean remains Tasmania's only Olympic track and field medallist.

Aside from cycling and athletics, it could be soundly argued that Tasmania is currently watching its best ever exponents in three other Olympic disciplines.

Indeed it will be argued, right here. Please read on.

Having both launched their international careers from the humble origins of Riverside Aquatic Centre, Ariarne Titmus and Jake Birtwhistle are not just Tasmania's or even Australia's best in their respective sports of swimming and triathlon, but among the world's top performers. Both have claimed world titles at the elite level. No other Tasmanian has. Case closed M'Lud.

Hockey is a little more contentious. Matthew Wells and Maree Fish both claimed Olympic gold medals while Wells added several other major honours and captained Australia.

But surely neither would deny Eddie Ockenden's claim to be Tasmania's greatest hockey player of all time.

Two World Cup, two World League, three Commonwealth Games and seven Champions Trophy triumphs, three Olympic Games tournaments, the national captaincy and now the country's all-time appearance record puts Ockenden in a league of his own.

Wells may have claimed the big G in Athens, but never won a World Cup and played less than half Ockenden's number of international appearances.

As Tim Paine, Matthew Wade and a new generation spearheaded by Riley Meredith continue the state's international cricket legacy created by the likes of David Boon, Ricky Ponting and George Bailey, there looms one stark contrast to all this over-performance.

This season's list of the AFLPA MVPs for the prestigious Leigh Matthews Trophy, as voted by the players themselves, did not contain a single Tasmanian.

Nor did the 40-person long-list All Australian squad.

This from a state used to having Jack Riewoldt and Ben Brown vying for the Coleman Medal, Grant Birchall winning premierships for fun and the likes of Ian Stewart, Darrel Baldock, Royce Hart and Peter Hudson enjoying hall of fame legend status.

To paraphrase old mate Harold, in AFL terms Tasmania has never had it so bad.