***OFFICIAL: Michael Phelps Thread v.nutswingers***

[T H I N K]

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.

[j_mac1908]

Would you be a spoiler against Michael Phelps?

YOU are a swimming teammate on the US team...Phelps has already won 5 golds on the way to making history...

YOU and he are competing in the same race...and during the race he's first BUT YOU are a VERY close SECOND.

You can pull ahead of him and take the gold and spoil his history making attempt OR you can take silver and let him have his moment...

Do you go for the Gold?

Do you take one for the team and take the Silver?

Considering any backlash what would you do?

[Epicurean Materialist]

So what makes swimming 17 races in 8 days so sensible?

[dhpotter]

This is nothing new, people are always shouting "greatest athlete" whenever someone is abnormally dominant in their sport. Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Lance Armstrong, etc. etc.

[Due 4/20/2010 with # 3]

[gottjess?]

Most of them are still fairly short races

You can't even compare to somebody completing a pentathlon or having to get through multiple stages of competition to get one gold medal.

[Shaheen]

No you can't compare that
and you can't compare the effort a swimmer puts into a single race vs the effort used in running either.

it's all apples and oranges
you can't directly compare running distance vs swimming distance.
Try running 200m then try swimming 200m
swimming does let you do more events but the physical ability to do all those and events and get gold that's an entirely different story

[rabcnesbit]

I swim for the GOld ever time I'm in the water. I don't care who has what at that point, I'm swimming for Gold.

[pregnant wiv baby boy]

Go for gold. Why would you let him win and be the "greatest" if he really wasn't? He shouldn't have a moment if he didn't earn it. Losing is a part of sports

[?a Chanthy]

I'm not saying that he isn't a great swimmer and he has definitely put in a lot of effort. I'm just remarking that the number of medals for swimming is disproportionate and that counting total number of medals to assess which athlete is the "greatest" is retarded.