Michael Phelps.... Deserving of the hype?

[Kevin]

but 8 medals in all these events that are almost the same

Obviously you don't swim. The 100m freestyle is as different from the 400m freestyle as the 100m dash is from the 800m dash. Carl Lewis did not win the 100 and the 800. He won the 100 and the 200 and the Long jump.

The 100m back stroke is as different from the 100m freestyle as the long jump is from the triple jump. Lewis did the long jump but not the triple jump.

The reason why there are "so many" swimming events is because they really are that different from each other. The 50 free doesn't really have a track analog. It'd be more like a 125m run. It's all out the whole way but you have a bit of time where you are holding top speed and no longer accelerating. Most of the world class 100m runners are still accelerating at the end. The 100 free is pretty close to the 200m dash. The 200 free is pretty similar to the 400m dash. The 400m free is pretty close to the 800m not a distance event not a sprint. The 1500m free is more like a 5k run.

The other strokes are really not just "freestyle on your back or freestyle with 2 arms". The use different muscles the muscles that overlap are taxed differently. If you believe that the balance beam and the floor exercise are the same event in gymnastics I'll let you say that breaststroke and butterfly are the same stroke.

Now do I take anything away from Carl Lewis or Jesse Owens (and I consider Owens better than Lewis). Not at all. In ways they are more amazing because every healthy human being has the means to run (I'm being a bit broad with the term healthy, obviously there are quad and para-plegic individuals out there who can't run without modification. It's much harder to have access to water that you can swim in. That means that there is generally a larger pool of people exploring their potential in running than in swimming. The pressures on Jesse Owens were insane.

I still consider Jim Thorpe one of the most phenomenal athletes ever. He won gold medals in track and field he played professional baseball, basketball, and football. He won professional golf tournaments. Yes the sports universe was different in the 1910 - 1930 era, but still. We saw what happened when Jordan tried to play professional baseball. We are properly amazed when we consider what Deion Sanders and Bo Jackson did in 2 professional leagues still because it is that amazingly good.

I also am utterly amazed by people like Mark Allen and Dave Scott who each won the Ironman Triathlon 6 times and of course Paula Newby-Fraser an 8 time winner, 4 in a row. I mean swimming 2.4 miles, biking 112 miles and then running 26.2 miles all in the same day and doing it in just over 8 hours as well. Insane conditioning and while those are all endurance and not power events, it's crazy.

However I put Phelps in the same category as folks like that. And the competition in swimming now is much stiffer than it has ever been. You'll note very few swimmers swim more than 1 event. They will often swim both distances of it, but it's also not common for them to win both those distances or to hold world records in both distance. You are a breast stroker or a freestyler or an IMer (though since the IM is swimming all 4 strokes you'll see people who are breaststroke/IM or backstroke/IM). This Olympics had a few other amazing swimmers doing stuff that had Phelps not been there would have been the headlines. Ryan Lochte, Kristy Coventry, Katie Hoff, Natalie Coughlin, Laslzo Cseh. All of them swam schedules that are just normally not seen and won medals (not all golds of course) in pretty much everything they swam. Phelps had to beat these other amazing swimmers and did.


That being said, Phelps needs to do some more work in 2012 before I'll call him the greatest Olympian. He's close, he's competed in 3 (finished 6th in the 200 butter fly in Sydney as 15 year old). I will say he's had the single best Olympics ever though. 8 golds, 7 world records, 8 American records (He got the 100 free American record in the 4x100, it's just the 100 fly he didn't get a world or american in, that is held by Ian Crocker (set 3 years ago) who he beat to get the gold).

I can't name the greatest athlete in the world, but he's in the conversation. As the greastest swimmer ever he has to be. I will say right now that he is a better athlete than Tiger Woods. Gold doesn't need the same kind of athleticism. Now as a competitor, you can talk about Tiger with him, but not as an athlete. I still tend to think of the decathlon competitors as better athletes than any of the other track and field stars. They compete at very high levels in very dissimilar events as well. It's certainly a more difficult 'event' than any single swimming event. Long jumps, shot puts, sprints, hurdles, middle distance runs, etc. But again to compare what Phelps did to them, I would need to see a decathlete set a world record in one of the 10 events and set the world record in the decathlon itself for it to be in the same category.


Oh and speaking of cool Olympic things and athletes. We'll have to see how it goes in 2012, but the US womens softball team that is so ridiculously good that they aren't going to have softball in 2012 are seriously considering changing over to handball. The US doesn't have a team, but I bet those softball players have the ability to change sports and if they can get the coaching and find the teams to play against in the next 4 years have a shot at doing something real. It will be a very interesting look at how skills in on sport can translate to another.


Edit: Just realized I wasn't clear on my greatest Olympian criteria. I believe you need to win medals in at least 3 Olympics to qualify. I think that covers the criteria of longevity that I feel is needed.