Regarding the `relative´value of an Olympic Gold Medal

In My Humble Opinion
21

[QUOTE=Gorsnak]
This is just silly as well. Which 8 events might a single track athlete enter? 100, 4x100, 200, 400, 4x400, 110 hurdles, long jump, and triple jump? That’s the most closely related 8, and yet they require a far greater range of athleticism than the range demanded of Phelps. I submit that for a single athlete to win all those would be a vastly more remarkable feat than Phelps’. That isn’t to take anything away from Phelps - what he did was incredible. But it’s no more incredible than for Carl Lewis to win gold in each of the 100, 200, 4x100, and long jump (which he did in boycotted LA Games).
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Scratch the long jump and triple jump…add the 800m and the 400m hurdles. Although it would be a reach to make the comparison that freestyle:sprint as butterfly:hurdles, each list of events does have a more difficult element to it. I also believe that it’s possible someone like Usain Bolt (Jamaica) could make a run for this in London in 2012.

22

[QUOTE=Yeticus Rex]
Scratch the long jump and triple jump…add the 800m and the 400m hurdles. Although it would be a reach to make the comparison that freestyle:sprint as butterfly:hurdles, each list of events does have a more difficult element to it. I also believe that it’s possible someone like Usain Bolt (Jamaica) could make a run for this in London in 2012.
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Phelps’ run had a historical precedent: Spitz. What you are suggesting Usain Bolt could accomplish not only does not have a precedent, I don’t know of any athlete who has even attempted the 100M and 400M, let alone the 800.

23

[QUOTE=Gorsnak]
I could go with that. Heiden’s performance is roughly akin to if Usain Bolt won, on top of the 100 and 200, the 400, 800, and 1500 as well. Which of course won’t ever happen.
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No, this could occur in speed skating. Canadian Cindy Klassen, in 2006, won silver in the 1000 and 1500 and team pursuit and bronze in the 3000 and 5000. If you want to claim that it would be equivalent to the above in track, you have to show that any athlete has attempted something like that, let alone be competitive.

These comparisons to track distances are pure fantasy.

24

[QUOTE=Yeticus Rex]
No, he’s not a personal friend, but I do understand what was accomplished here because I had participated in competitive swimming when I was a kid and know how difficult it is to master just one stroke (let alone 3 or 4), so I believe I have better insight than most of the posters here.
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I’m sort of with you up to here. I was a competitive swimmer for years, and it’s difficult but not impossible to master 2 or more strokes. All the really good back/breast/fly swimmers are also pretty good freestylers. I swam 200 IM, and the guy who always beat me was able to compete at all four strokes individually if he wanted to.

This, however, I don’t buy for a minute. It’s second nature to swimmers, but every sport has it’s own issues. Being in the water is no different then biathletes who have to slow down their heart rates from 160bpm to 40bpm then shoot between the beats. The ability to do stuff like this is what makes us human. The ability to it exceptionally well is what makes us athletes.

25

[QUOTE=Lamar Mundane]
No, this could occur in speed skating. Canadian Cindy Klassen, in 2006, won silver in the 1000 and 1500 and team pursuit and bronze in the 3000 and 5000. If you want to claim that it would be equivalent to the above in track, you have to show that any athlete has attempted something like that, let alone be competitive.

These comparisons to track distances are pure fantasy.
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Heiden was a speedskater as well, and won gold in 500, 1000, 1500, 3000, and 5000 at Lake Placid. At a 10:1 ratio between the longest and shortest event (and the 500 is really a pure sprint in speedskating), it’s not far from the track events I listed. Maybe knock off the 1500, leaving 100-800. I know that’s never happened, and that no one has ever been competitive at that range of distances in track. That’s what makes Heiden such a freak. Nothing against Cindy, who is a fabulous athlete (and heck I’m probably related to her), but her ratio is just 5:1. You could almost imagine that Usain Bolt would be competitive at 400m if he tried, or that Michael Johnson would have been competitive at the 100m, which would be a 4:1 and in the same ballpark, but 10:1 is freaky.

26

I think that the fact that the different swimming strokes require different technique is irrelevant. They are races, and what matters is who’s fastest.

When Dick Fosbury popularised the Fosbury Flop in high jump, the sport did not split into two high jumps, a freestyle and a scissors-only. No, there remained one high jump, and virtually everybody switched to the new technique, because it was better.

So yeah, I can accept that it takes great skill to be good at butterfly. But so what? It takes skill to balance a chair on your nose. When it comes to racing, freestyle is better than butterfly.

27

[QUOTE=Usram]
I think that the fact that the different swimming strokes require different technique is irrelevant. They are races, and what matters is who’s fastest.
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I think that you are not a swimmer, and do not know what you are talking about.

28

What Lightray said. By that logic, the hurdles have to go. As do most equestrian events.

29

[QUOTE=Gorsnak]
This is just silly as well. Which 8 events might a single track athlete enter? 100, 4x100, 200, 400, 4x400, 110 hurdles, long jump, and triple jump? That’s the most closely related 8, and yet they require a far greater range of athleticism than the range demanded of Phelps. I submit that for a single athlete to win all those would be a vastly more remarkable feat than Phelps’. That isn’t to take anything away from Phelps - what he did was incredible. But it’s no more incredible than for Carl Lewis to win gold in each of the 100, 200, 4x100, and long jump (which he did in boycotted LA Games).
[/QUOTE]

This is just silly. I am a runner who has taken up triathlons; my kids swim, and I am a swimming official. It required no great range of athleticism for Lewis to win the 100, 200, and 4x100. (BTW, running also has a 4x200.) Running requires the least technique of any aerobic or power sport. (I didn’t say no technique, compare the Olympians to your average kid running around.) And of course, all jumpers are pretty decent sprinters. To me, gymnastics requires the greatest range of athleticism, but apparently not, as many gymnast have medaled at least 3 times. And of course, how do you compare triathletes, who must excel at three different sports in one event?

Let’s not count relays, which require a solid team. There are more sprinters than swimmers, and more swimmers than ice skaters. At least two male Olympians have won all the 100, 200 and long jump (Owens and Lewis), and it seems to me two women as well. There has been one swimmer to win more than 3 individual golds (Phelps), and one skater. I don’t follow gymnastics, but I know there have been several to pick up multiple individual medals.

Which is the most remarkable? Who’s to say. Frankly, I think comparing athletes across sports is absurd, and it is generally silly to even compare across decades. What you can say is that Carl Lewis dominant in the long jump, winning it four times. Quick, name the person who relegated Lewis to the silver in the 200 at Seoul. The only person to beat Phelps in the Olympics were the greatest freestyler of their time in their prime, Thorpe and Hackett, before Phelps’ prime. If I had to pick one over the other, I’d pick Phelps. On the other hand, Lewis did win the long jump in 4 Olympics.

[QUOTE=Gorsnak]

I think that the fact that the different swimming strokes require different technique is irrelevant. They are races, and what matters is who’s fastest.

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Actually the different swimming strokes also tend to require structurally different bodies. Backstrokers tend to be pigeon toed; breast strokers are the complete opposite. Breaststroke and fly require a rotation about a short axis, free and back about your long axis. 50 meter freestylers are bigger than linebackers, distance swimmers are bigger versions of distance runners.

And don’t discount technique. Fly is a slow form of drowning for me, but I can freestyle for miles.

30

I swam in high school all four years and competed at the state level in several events. My strongest stroke is crawl or freestyle, but since I did IMs too, I had to do all four pretty well; my least favorite is back. I’ve been swimming since — literally — before I can remember, so swimming in any style feels pretty natural, but there are vast differences in the technique needed for each stroke. It is not automatic that you’ll be good at all strokes if you’re good at one. Swimming well is such a technical skill that triathletes who don’t have a strong prior swimming background rarely do all that well.

Phelps’ accomplishments are remarkable in that very few swimmers can do really well at more than one stroke. Spitz, for example, did only freestyle and butterfly; he didn’t do back or breast, and he didn’t do IM.

As far as athletes with diverse skill sets, the decathlon has my vote. Decathletes are probably the best-rounded athletes of all. They have to have good endurance, but they also have to have explosive strength for their jumping, throwing, and sprint events. They do three throwing events, shot, discus, and javelin, each of which is highly technical as well as strength-intensive. The pole vault is also considered to be a very demanding technical event. The top decathletes are good enough in most events to be among the top competitors if they competed in those individually, but they have to split their training time between each and so don’t get the edge that specialization provides.

31

Does anyone know of a site that gives a breakdown of his placement in each of the legs of the IMs? I checked is Wiki page, and it looked to me that he wasn’t all that strong in back and breast stroke, but is phenominal in freestyle and butterfly. So is it really fair to say that he’s mastered all 4 strokes? Or that he’s just far and above better at two of them?

The only competitions that I don’t like as much are the team medly ones. Those I don’t really see as having a reason aside from an excuse to garner more medals. It would be like gymnastics having a medal for team vault…or team uneven bars. They have team overall, but individual competitions for each of the apparatus.

32

Don’t have Phelps’ splits, but this SI article talks about Phelps competing in the 100 breast and demonstrating that he really doesn’t have a weak stroke anymore in the medley.

See also the prior link I posted about Phelps’ intent to start competing in 100m events – if Kosuke Kitajima is taking him as a credible threat in breaststroke (though probably a bit tongue-in-cheek), he’s pretty close to mastering all of them.

The medley relays, BTW, are quite different from the free relays. And give specialists other than freestylers a chance to compete in them. Free relays are dominated by free specialists only – some of whom, in an Olympics event, might not even be competing in any individual event. The medley team will have the best competitor in each stroke. And the changeovers in medley relays are completely different than in a free relay.

You can’t compare between sports. And your analogy to gymnastics is off – medley relays are the ones combining different strokes. You should have compared that to a team all-around in gymnastics. The free relays only deal with one stroke; that is what you should have compared to a team vault, or whatever.

33

[QUOTE=Lightray]
So what?

People keep posting stuff like this as though they’ve made some profound insight. It is meaningless. Any other Olympic discipline is not swimming. Swimming has the number of medals that are appropriate to swimming. Badminton has the number of medals that are appropriate to badminton.

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And what is the number of medals that is appropriate to a sport? Can you explain your formula for it?
why does swimming award medals in slower strokes than freestyle? Why are there so many distances that one person can win at?
The point is that it’s too easy to win a gold in swimming, compared to other sports.

Take the number of double gold winners:

Swimming has 13 (7 men, 6 women)
Track and field has 1 (Usain Bolt 100 + 200; last achieved in 1984).

If we added a 50 metre, 150 metre and 250 metre event, I’d put my money on Bolt to win 5 golds. Why is this not ‘appropriate’ to athletics?

[QUOTE=Lightray]

Phelps isn’t a great Olympian because of the number of trinkets he won. He is a great Olympian because he dominated his sport this Olympiad. Comparing him as an athlete to athletes in different sports, based on the number of gold medals they won, is a fool’s game.
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I agree with this. :cool:
But sadly the statistic that Phelps won one more medal than Spitz is world-wide news.

34

[QUOTE=glee]
And what is the number of medals that is appropriate to a sport? Can you explain your formula for it?
why does swimming award medals in slower strokes than freestyle? Why are there so many distances that one person can win at?
The point is that it’s too easy to win a gold in swimming, compared to other sports.

Take the number of double gold winners:

Swimming has 13 (7 men, 6 women)
Track and field has 1 (Usain Bolt 100 + 200; last achieved in 1984).

If we added a 50 metre, 150 metre and 250 metre event, I’d put my money on Bolt to win 5 golds. Why is this not ‘appropriate’ to athletics?

I agree with this. :cool:
But sadly the statistic that Phelps won one more medal than Spitz is world-wide news.
[/QUOTE]

Track and field just started, dude. Bolt doubled in the first set you could double in. Unless Jamaica dqs, all of their sprinters will double up.

What is the deal with you and the fact that swimming has different strokes? Sailing, kayaking, canoeing, crew, are all different forms of boating, should only the fastest be allowed? There are two forms of volleyball; four different forms of diving per gender. Wrestling has two forms and a bzillon weight classes, and of course judo and boxing are just other form of fighting, none of which are the “most effective”. Should there just be cage fighting? Formula I is faster than the alternatives (NASCAR, and whatever the street racing thing is called) and slower than drag racing, but they are considered legitimate. The appropriate international organization banned recumbent bikes a couple of decades ago, so the whole sport only uses the slower design.

As to your other, you answered your own question. The difference between 100 and 150, and then between 200 and 250 is too small to count even in swimming. 50, 100, 200, 300, and 400 would be more appropriate. I personally would stick something in between 10K and marathon. The reason people don’t run 50s is because they don’t want to. American football players are routinely timed in the 40, because it matters to the sport.

Using my level of effort, I’d say 50m swim == 100m dash, 100m swim == 400 m dash, 200m swim = 1500m run, 400m IM, 500 free == 5K run, 1500 free = 10K. Running has the the 200, 400m and 800m, and marathon, which swimming doesn’t, but swimming has multiple strokes at 100 and 200, which running doesn’t. Of course running also has hurdles, which I’m sure you look at as a way of running more slowly. (I would say breaststroke is to free, as hurdling is to sprinting.)

35

[QUOTE=glee]
The point is that it’s too easy to win a gold in swimming, compared to other sports.
[/QUOTE]

No. The point is that you are comparing apples to oranges.

There is no “formula” for the number of medals appropriate to a sport. You are the person insisting that there must be some freakish parity in number of medals between sports.

Each sport’s governing body determines the events that will be competed at the Olympics. Swimming has all those medal events because that is what is appropriate for swimming. I have no idea why the number of medals in other sports was arrived at, but at least I have the awareness of my ignorance, and will not attempt to argue from it.

There are arguments to be made that swimming could reduce its number of Olympic events. The addition of the 50m in '88 was long overdue – it was widely competed, and has characteristics that make it a unique race. The addition of other 50m events would be silly; no one swims those. That is how FINA determines what should go in the Olympics.

Personally, the only Olympic swimming event that I’m ambivalent about is the 4 x 200m free relay. I’m not sure there is enough difference from it as a relay event as compared to the 4 x 100m free relay, that is not already captured by the individual 100m vs. 200m free events.

However, comparisons between different sports as to the number of Olympics is stupid. They should not have the same number of medals; they are different sports. And just because it is world-wide news that people are making this stupid comparison, does not make it suddenly insightful.

36

[QUOTE=silenus]
What Lightray said. By that logic, the hurdles have to go. As do most equestrian events.
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Lightray’s response seemed rather “ad hominem”, as I believe they say around here. You, on the other hand, have a point. Hurdles is a bit silly. 300m steeplechase - let’s face it, it wouldn’t make much difference if it didn’t have the… steeples? Ignoring the minor hurdling aspect, anyway, it’s just another middle distance race rather too similar to the 1500m and 5000m.

I don’t think it’s much of a defence to cite another sport that has too many events. Swimming and athletics are the worst cases. I suppose athletics gets a pass on some things because of the Olympian tradition, and Citius, Altius, Fortius and all that. But I’m not here to support athletics, particularly. And I’m quite happy to have the “Citius” events in swimming - races, in which you can swim any style you like.

37

Usram,I ran the steeplechase a few times(i was not a good hurdler) in college and it is NOT similar to the 1500/5000. The hurdling aspect is not minor, it changes the whole race.

38

I heard Brendan Foster (British Olympic medallist, so I assume he knows what he is talking about) bemoaning our lack of 3000m steeplechasers, and how “decent 1500m or 5000m runners” ought to be able to compete in it. 1500m runners often move up to 5000m, so the distance itself isn’t a problem.

39

[QUOTE=Usram]
Lightray’s response seemed rather “ad hominem”, as I believe they say around here.
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No. My response was limited to the facts. You are obviously not a swimmer, and you do not know what you are talking about when you are making your assertations about swimming.