Yeah, they guy's a freak but I still think it's overhyped...

There are far too many medals for swimming. For a runner to have a similar list of medals they'd need to run the 100m, 200, 400, 800 etc as well as relay, hurdles, a marathon etc... it's just not sensible.

I'm more impressed by Steven Redgrave who won 5 gold medals in 5 DIFFERENT olympics - 1984, 88, 92, 96 and 2000
That means he was best in the world for TWENTY years and was still competing into his 40's.

Or Jim Thorpe:
won Pentathalon and Decathalon golds in the same year. That's 15 events.
in the Pentathalon he won 4 of the 5 events
in the Decathalon he won 4 of the 10 events and placed in the top 4 of all 10 events
his points total for the Decathalon stood as the record for almost 20 years.
that same Olympic year he came in 4th in the High Jump

You also have to consider the difficulty of events. Surely a gold in the pentathlon is harder than a 100m breaststroke. And to be an athlete you have to be good at lots of things - track, gymnastics, swimming, rowing, cycling etc etc etc.

Phelps... greatest swimmer? Probably. Greatest "athlete".. no way.

Most gold medals is a RETARDED way of saying someone is "better." It would take a shotputter or boxer several olympics to earn as many medals, even if he/she won EVERY event.