I think not. He’s the greatest Olympic swimmer. Olympic swimming, unfortunately to my mind, is a medal-heavy category that tries to pull too much medals out of land and into the water. I do believe that the Olympics is, by and large, about athletics on land. And for that reason, it’s still a toss-off between nine-gold medal winners Nurmi of Finland and Lewis of the USA. Lewis is slightly ahead since he won more individual golds than Nurmi. He also won a gold for one event in four Olympiads. Nurmi, however, won his 9 in just three games. And he won 5 golds in one game alone. That’s an 88-year old record that still stands.
If there’s anyone coming close to Nurmi and Lewis, it would be Redgrave of the UK. Five gold medals in the same event over five Olympiads is just mind-boggling.
How do you judge? Does an athlete who wins a swag of medals at one Olympics be rated ahead of someone who wins the same event over say three Olympics? In one case you have an athlete who has a brilliance for a short period as opposed to an athlete who dominates for 12 years.
Factor in equestrian events. Is it the horse or the rider?
It has to be by heart rather than head, and Mark Spitz was the best for mine.
Don Shollander was stunning during his time (64-68). I still remember the cover of Life magazine with him on it. He was the first REALLY BIG DEAL since Jessie.
Someone who is good at one swimming event is often good at many others. If they are a champion in one event, likely they will be competitive in other events. So this does seem to lead to a champion swimmer getting medals in many different swimming events. Gymnastics seems to be the same way. A gymnast who’s good at one event will often be competitive in other events.
Other events don’t seem to work like that. Someone who is a champion sprinter will likely not be a champion in other events, like hurdling or the 400m. So it seems athletes in other events do not have as much carryover to other events.
I think part of it is that swimming is not just about covering a fixed distance as fast as possible. It’s about covering that distance by performing a certain stroke. So you have 100m free, back, fly, breast. A sprinter, on the other hand, has one 100m event. If there were different 100m sprinting events, I would expect many sprinters to get multiple medals. So a swimmer who can swim very fast over 100m has 4 opportunities to get a medal but a runner only has one.
This isn’t really true. Most strokes are dominated by specialists in those strokes.
In 2000, no male swimmer won events in more than one stroke. Nor in 1996, nor in 1992, nor, even, in 1988 (Matt Biondi won 5 golds, but he only ever swam freestyle: 2 individual events and three freestyle legs in relays). At that point, I got tired of looking.
Swimmers like Lochte and Phelps that can swim multiple strokes well (or win IMs while also winning single-stroke events) are the exception, not the rule.
Maybe, but at least they have the opportunity to be the exception. Usain Bolt doesn’t get the chance to win golds in the 100m hopping, skipping and running backwards events.
I agree that swimming seems to be a medal heavy event. If you are an olympic swimmer chances are you are competitive with most strokes.
If you’re really good at basketball the only medal you can ever hope to receive is the team medal. There is no three on three medal, one on one medal, layup medal, dunk medal, free throw medal, three pointer medal, etc.
There is a hopping/skipping/running event, though to be fair, it’s 10m longer. And there’s the long jump (which, as Carl Lewis demonstrated, is clearly compatible with being a world-class sprinter). Not to mention the triple jump (ironically, formerly referred to as the “hop, skip and jump”) and the longer sprint distances.
As I noted in post #8, this is not true. You might beat the pants off the people at the local Y, or even people at a competitive regional meet. But at the Olympic level, the different strokes are dominated by specialists. And with the exception of Phelps and Lochte, swimmers just don’t win both IMs and individual stroke events. I checked all the way back to 1972, and no man other than Phelps or Lochte has done it. In fact, 1972 was the last time a man other than Phelps and Lochte (Mark Spitz, also a once-in-a-generation swimmer) won events in more than one stroke at all.
My comment about “hopping/skipping/jumping” was partially tongue-in-cheek, but there is a real point there. There are plenty of other events Usain Bolt could have competed in. He didn’t, and he wouldn’t have won (though the long jump is debatable) because those events are dominated by specialists. But you’ve presented no argument that swimming is less dominated by specialists.
This is rapidly approaching wrong on the Internet territory, but I went back through every Olympics where individual medleys have been held.. You know how many times the same man won both a “swim forward” race and a “swim relays with yourself” race? Three times, when Michael Phelps did it. No one else has. You know how many times the same man won a “swim backwards” race and a “swim relays with yourself” race? Once, when Ryan Lochte did it. That’s it. Only three men ever have won gold medals swimming more than one kind of stroke*.
If I ask why no one has won both the 100m and the 400m sprints, you’ll (rightly) say: that’s because the differences between the two races are huge! But why is it so hard to admit that maybe the differences between the strokes are huge, too? As evidence, basically no one can excel in more than one.
I realized that’s a little ambiguous, since obviously IM winners swim more than one kind of stroke. I meant three men ever have won different types of events.
I’ll answer you. On water you are so light there are several combinations of body mechanics that will propel you forward, at speeds that don’t vary by more than a few miles per hour. On land, it’s probably the same thing but one action is clearly the best: running. So every four years we want to see a contest between humans to see who can move fastest on land, in the most efficient un-powered way there is: running. It is arguably the most natural athletic movement in humans, and arguably the best measure.
Admittedly, track is also somewhat medal-heavy and the degree of specialization for each event is the same as swimming.
I’m also lukewarm towards events that require third party judgements.
I understand from BBC Olympic commentary that Usain Bolt could have competed in 200m, but says he doesn’t like to train, so essentially couldn’t be bothered.
What about the heptathletes, who compete in various events for just one gold? That’s my favourite I think.
It isn’t hard to admit. I don’t deny it. Excelling at more than one stroke is rare, but it does happen. And when it does, that rare swimmer has an opportunity to win a boatload of medals. But if there is an exceptional sprinter out there who can run forwards, backwards, hop and skip faster than anyone else in the world, we will never know it. So the biggest medal winner ever will always be a swimmer, not a track athlete.
I don’t understand what you’re arguing at this point. If you want to look at the total number of events on offer in track vs. swimming, I’ll admit that there are more. But not by that much. If you count up track events, including long jump since the long jump/100m double is about as uncommon as an individual stroke/IM double, there are 13 track events (not including the marathon or the race walks, even though the latter are definitely an example of “different strokes” on land). By contrast, there 16 swimming events, not counting the open-water 10k marathon. We’re not talking a huge difference here.
What I will concede is this: if you’re excellent at exactly one thing, the 100m freestyle, you can win 3 medals at the Olympics, while if you’re excellent at only the 100m dash, you only have an opportunity to win 2. But this is still only a difference of 50%. You have to contend with the fact that not only does Michael Phelps have the most gold medals, he has twice as many as the next closest athlete. That’s a huge difference to try and make up by arguing that he got to swim more.
Usain Bolt competed in and won the 200m dash. He also won gold in the 100m and the 4*100m relay.
Swimming is clearly not the only sport in which there is overlap between the different events, as Bolt’s success demonstrates, but it is probably the sport in which there is the most potential for individual athletes to win in multiple events, even if there are also specialists who are strong and dominant in other events. Still, the comparison with track and field is probably not even the most useful since that, too, is a discipline that allows for considerable cross-over between events What Phelps did is clearly exceptional, but not unique - others have also excelled in more than one stroke and/or distance, just not as often.
Winning so many gold medals is simply not an option for someone who particapates in a team sport like football or field hockey (or hockey during the winter olympics) or for people in sports like judo, where there’s several event but you obviously only qualify for one weight category. There are several Olympians who achieved more greatly than Phelps for instance in terms of winning medals in consecutive games (one of they guys who lit the flame for London 2012 won 5 golds in a row over the course of 16 yrs, IIRC) or in terms of making a crossover between sports far more different than 50m free style and 100 m free style. I’m thinking for instance of Clara Hughes, who’s won cycling events as well as long-track speed skating events, making her the only person ever to win multiple* medals during winter and summer Olympic Games.
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I wouldn’t say greatest. I’d say..most successful, maybe, since some of his medals came from team sports?
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Subtract all of his team stuff and Phelps would still have more individual gold medals than anyone else has individual-gold-medals-plus-team-gold-medals.
