Phelps is NOT the greatest olympian ever...

I still say Mr. Digits would take em all out.

One finger at a time!!!

The arguement that a lot of would be runners play other sports is a non sense due to the fact that every single one of them have the opportunity to compete, and every single one of them aswell as virtually every able bodied person world wide has participated in a footrace.

Pools require huge structural costs which the majority of the world cannot afford, 60% black Americans can't swim aswell as 30% of white. The numbers will be far greater in developing countries.

How many people have swam a 50 freestyle let alone a butterfly?

In regards to the events phelps won at Beijing here is another example. He won the 200m, 200m butterfly, 200m relay, 200m im. All those events last approx 1min 50. The non impact of the sport makes this number possible but as a direct comparison to track it would be like rudisha getting 4 variations of the 800m.

Further if numbers are your preferance rather than degree of difficulty there are countless shooters, kayakers, Gymnasts, swimmers, rowers who all have more medals than alberto juantorena who won the 400m and 800m both in world record time in Montreal.

I guess by numbers those shooters, archers, Gymnasts and swimmers are greater olympians though...

This. You never get much logic a lot of the time on let's run. Most decorated: yes greatest swimmer:yes greatest olympian: no. One of the best posts on let's run. Thankyou.

Exactly. Numbers are subjective because they only relate to the chances available in the individual sport. Larisa Latininya has 18 or so medals in gymnastics. The nature of swimming and gymnastics have led to numerous athletes obtaining over 10 medals. Bolt will never reach 18 medals, micheal Johnson didn't, Carl Lewis didn't, geb didn't, seb coe didn't, juantorena didn't, mike Powell didn't, daley Thompson didn't, Jessie Owens didnt. Is the larisa Latininya greater than all of them?

And if your answer is yes to support your own arguement, why wasn't she regarded as the greatest olympian ever when she had more medals than phelps in Beijing...

goatest wrote:

In the US, the best and fastest athletes play football and basketball. In the rest of the world they play soccer.

Olympic-caliber track athletes are the second rank ones that were not athletic enough to excel at the popular sports.

wait then where do swimmers come from?

My argument in support of Phelps is that he not only got the most medals. Most of them were gold. And a good amount of the time he broke a world record while doing it. So the performances were pretty impressive.

But I do think that maybe instead of calling him the greatest athlete, the most successful Olympian of all time would be better words.

Smartest on Earth wrote:Get rid of the 200 and just have the 100m for drop dead sprint guys.

yeah cuz michael johnson and his 19.32 in atlanta, who cares about that?

Actually some studies tend to show that blacks have on average rather a genetic disadvantage in swimming, because usually more massive.

goaterer wrote:

You do realise whites 'not' being able to medal in track contradicts your arguement. Your reiterating the depth of competition in track. Too bad one rich people and priveledged citizens are the only one that can swim. By genetic advantage of blacks your referring to fast twitch fibers. Therefore if everyone in the world could swim rather than 30% of the worlds population you'd like only see afew whites making finals I'm swimming aswell.

Soccer players ARE NOT great athletes.I come from the "rest of the world" ; the best athletes run, the best soccer players play soccer, the best swimmers swim, etc.

goatest wrote:

In the US, the best and fastest athletes play football and basketball. In the rest of the world they play soccer.

Olympic-caliber track athletes are the second rank ones that were not athletic enough to excel at the popular sports.

This.

I agree with phelps not being the greatest.i agree he is a great swimmer/athlete or whatever you want to call him.i agree obviously he is the most decorated olympian ever.

I will also say as others have, its not hard to be the most decorated when you are able to win 7+ medals per olympics.and you cant say that 'oh they are different strokes' and what? swimming is pretty universal,if you are an olympic class swimmer,your body is going to be pretty good at any stroke.eg if youre focused on front crawl or whatever its called,your arms and legs and lungs and heart and everything are all going to be conditioned well enough for you to handle all the other strokes well as theyre all pretty much using the same muscles.i know that focusing on just one wont make you as good in the others but youll be close.

Whereas in running, you can focus yourself on one distance eg 100m, however being olympic class at that distance wont make you as good at things like 800,1500,3k,5k,10k as they are all still essentially running,but they require very different training and style and is therefore impossible for a sprinter to also win middle to long distance events and vice versa.but swimmers can do that as the distance can be the same so they can have the same basic training and muscle strength and endurance for that distance and slightly tweak the style they do it in and hey presto 'look i won loads of gold medals fancy that'

Also i believe running is superior as running is the most basic primal form of movement we have had since our early days and therefore being the best at x distance is essentially being the best at the most important thing that humans do and have needed to do in order to be what we are as a species today.also if you were somewhere in a everyday situation and you need to get from a to b, you cant just magic up a tunnel of water to your objective, youll either walk or run (exluding cars as people had to walk or run before cars or horses were created and domesticated)

He is an amazing talent and the greatest swimmer in the history of the sport, but he certainly is not the greatest Olympian.

Emil Zatopek might be - winning the 5k, 10km, and marathon in the 1952 Olympics, which has never been repeated.

Look at the heptathletes - 7 different events over 2-days. They are in better shape than swimmers or runners.

The problem is the grade inflation in swimming. Think about it this way. By the logic of medals, Larissa Latynina was the "greatest Olympian of all time" before Phelps just broke her record. But who in their right minds would say that Larissa Latynina is a greater Olympic athlete than Jesse Owens or Carl Lewis or Jackie Joyner Kersee or Daley Thompson? The definition only works if the word "Olympian" has a different meaning than the word "athlete." If Olympian is purely quantitative--medals won--then, yes, Phelps is the greatest Olympian of all time, which is meaningless when you look at the number of medals available in his sport compared to others. Apples and oranges.

sprinterz wrote:

Your a fool. Bolt is the fastest human on the planet, there is no human that can beat his 100m wr. That single achievement is far superior to and swimming accomplishment. And ping pong... gtf outta here

Missy Franklin is SUPERIOR to Phelps and Bolt. She is FASTER than Bolt. She can swim 100m faster than Bolt can run 100m. She is a greater Olympian than Phelps and Bolt could ever be and she will go down as the greatest Olympian of ALL TIMES!

That is because Missy Franklin is going to be the greatest Olympian ever. Missy will easily surpass Phelps in medals won. She will win at least 20 gold medals and 25-30 total medals.

Abyd Ade wrote:

The problem is the grade inflation in swimming. Think about it this way. By the logic of medals, Larissa Latynina was the "greatest Olympian of all time" before Phelps just broke her record. But who in their right minds would say that Larissa Latynina is a greater Olympic athlete than Jesse Owens or Carl Lewis or Jackie Joyner Kersee or Daley Thompson? The definition only works if the word "Olympian" has a different meaning than the word "athlete." If Olympian is purely quantitative--medals won--then, yes, Phelps is the greatest Olympian of all time, which is meaningless when you look at the number of medals available in his sport compared to others. Apples and oranges.

Missy Franklin will surpass Phelps and become the one true undisputed greatest Olympian of all times.

Aufman wrote:

Missy Franklin is SUPERIOR to Phelps and Bolt. She is FASTER than Bolt. She can swim 100m faster than Bolt can run 100m.!

what?!? Sheet....I can WALK faster than Missy Franklin can swim, motherF'r.

Running should add: backwards running, skipping, and long distance two foot hopping. THEN we would have the equivalent to what swimming has.

(and why doesn't running have these other variations on normal running? Because IT WOULD BE STUPID TO HAVE VARIOUS SLOWER FORMS OF THE SAME BASIC MOVEMENT, JUST LIKE IT IS STUPID TO HAVE ALL THOSE OTHER STROKES.)