Michael Phelps.... Deserving of the hype?

[Kevin]

I don't agree. We are talkign about a very special individual here. A few of the other great swimmers (Thorpe en van den Hoogeband) also had very typical body shapes. Thorpe had size 16 feet if I am not mistaken, and van den Hoogenbands torso was 'dented' giving him a perfect shape for going fast.

The biggest proof is that a 100m winner could never win a 1000m as well. (running I mean)

You'll also note that in swimming the 50m winner doesn't win the 1500. The 100m winner doesn't win the 400m either (Thorpe tried). Phelps did not win the 100m free, though his lead-off in the 4x100 would have placed him 3rd. Could Bolt finish 3rd in the 400 or 800, I bet he could but he isn't trying. You can think of swimming more as having the straight running events (freestyle) and then 3 different hurdle events with a running/hurdling event (the IM). Phelps didn't win the 100m he didn't win the 50m either. He swam on the 4x100 as the lead off but he wasn't the fastest in the pool for that. This is like in track where you see 400m guys and occasionally an 800m guy running on the winning 4x100.

The 50m winner has never won the 400m either. So this is the same as in track with the 100m winner not winning the 800m.

So you could make the argument that pure sprinters are undervalued. I've seen track guys win the 400, 800, and run on the 4x100 and the 4x400. That's a shot at 4 medals. But what they didn't do that Phelps did was run a hurdle race as well.

I think Bolt could win a hurdle event if he trained for it as well, but he isn't trying. I think he would need to if you want to put on the level of Phelps. Bolt is much closer to Ian Thorpe in what he is doing, but since Bolt has been more dominant I think he is more impressive than Thorpe was.