200 Fly is not a sprint. Go to a youth meet and watch kids struggle to finish it.
Die in the 800m run you can walk it in.
Die in the 200m Freestyle you just swim slow to the finish.
Die in the 200 Fly and it looks like they are drowning. At risk for being DQ for arms not clearing the surface.
It's the hardest middle distance event in all racing sports.
SwimLifer wrote:
200 Fly is not a sprint. Go to a youth meet and watch kids struggle to finish it.
Die in the 800m run you can walk it in.
Die in the 200m Freestyle you just swim slow to the finish.
Die in the 200 Fly and it looks like they are drowning. At risk for being DQ for arms not clearing the surface.
It's the hardest middle distance event in all racing sports.
I guess that the 200 fly is the equivalent to the crossfit murph event.
Stan Van G wrote:
As an olympian, no one compares to Phelps and no one probably ever will. He has been the best person in his sport for 16 years, that is incredible. He might even keep going in Japan, other swimmers have come and gone. In terms of comparable athletes, there's probably a lot of people. Usain Bolt and Serena Williams come to mind. More or less I think you have to look at the "GOAT" of every sport. There's others in sports I'm not familiar with I'm sure. My main point was differentiating between olympic success and overall success.
16 years? He's been the best in his sport since 2000? How come he didn't medal in Sydney then?
It's not fair to compare swimmers to other athletes by number of golds. Swimmers have the opportunity to win half a dozen medals at every olympics whIle basketball, soccer, volleyball etc have to complete an entire tournament for 1 medal. Maybe if they had a 48 minute basketball competition, 24 minute, 12 minute, 48 minute 3 on 3, 24 minute 3 on 3, 12 minute 3 on 3. 48 minute 1 on 1, 24 minute 1 on 1, 12 minute 1 on 1. A horse competition, dunk competition, etc. Then it would be a fair comparison between basketball players and phelps
I'm not saying phelps career domination of swimming wasn't impressive but I think Carl Lewis was just as impressive if not more
Dean Karmazes or maybe Lance Armstrong.
One has to wonder how many "intersex" athletes there have been in history:https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/find-a-grave-prod/photos/2009/358/8326559_126175829684.jpg
rjt wrote:
Fanny Blankers-Koen won the 100m, 200m, 80m hurdles and relay in London 48 and would have won more medals, but for a rule limiting women to three individual events. She was world record holder in the high jump and long jump. She also set 16 world records at eight different events:100 yards, 100m, 200m, high hurdles, high jump, long jump, pentathlon, and 4x110 yard relay won five European titles between 1946 and 1950 and 58 Dutch national championships,
kartelite wrote:
Stan Van G wrote:As an olympian, no one compares to Phelps and no one probably ever will. He has been the best person in his sport for 16 years, that is incredible. He might even keep going in Japan, other swimmers have come and gone. In terms of comparable athletes, there's probably a lot of people. Usain Bolt and Serena Williams come to mind. More or less I think you have to look at the "GOAT" of every sport. There's others in sports I'm not familiar with I'm sure. My main point was differentiating between olympic success and overall success.
16 years? He's been the best in his sport since 2000? How come he didn't medal in Sydney then?
This should really be modified to 15 years. He set the 200m fly world record in 2001, and has never lost it since.
I have to go with Bolt. Those folks are genetically designed with superior athleticism.
Cut him some slack. He was 5th at his first games at 15 years old. Bolt didn't make the final in the 200 in 2004.
In the sense that people push to what looks like stupidity sure. Way more oxygen deprivation though...
Here is a Yale Dual meet from a few years back. Lane 3 dies heavy in 200 yards... (180 metres). Only ever swam it in yards once and did a 1:49 in the late 90s in the old U of Washington pool by Husky stadium.
There are some key differences between Phelps and Bolt that favor Bolt.
- Not everyone around the world swims or has been in a swimming race. Most people around the world have run in a sprint race at one time or another and if they were exceptional at it chances are they pursued it. This makes it incredible that anyone could win the 100 and 200 meter dash three Olympics in a row. There is a MUCH smaller pool of competitors for swimming.
- There is no backwards event, skipping 100 meter, side stepping 200 meter race etc. in running. In the running sprints it's just a-b as fast as you can go. So the number of medals is somewhat irrelevant.
Phelps is incredible but lets get real here. To say Phelps is superior to Bolt in any way is a little crazy.
CommentatorJerry wrote:
In my opinion, the medal count is irrelevant. If you look at the variety of swim events, Phelps has a core competency that enables him to succeed at multiple swim events concentrated around sprint distances. He's a good freestyle sprinter and butterfly sprinter. Since there are 50, 100, 200, and three relays spanning those distances, someone good (like Phelps) and on a good team (like USA) would inevitably have more medal opportunities than someone who is just a freestyle swimmer or just a butterfly sprinter. His talent is multiple skills over multiple distances.
I agree with the general idea here. I wouldn't go as far as to say that medal count is irrelevant, but it is just one of a number of factors. I'd definitely suggest that relay medals should count for less (and of course swimming has more relays) as your ability to win one very much depends on where you were born. If Bolt had been from Grenada like Kirani James he'd probably have three fewer gold medals, with no difference in his own personal ability.
As others have suggested what we're looking at here is probably the ability to succeed at very different events - Blankers-Koen seems like a really good example. Even Nurmi's range (medals at 1500m, 3000m steeple, 5000m, 10,000m and cross country) doesn't seem as diverse as someone who can be a top performer at the sprints, hurdles and both jumps. When was the last time someone was top-level competitive at both the high jump and long jump, let alone the sprints and hurdles as well?
I suppose you could argue that women's sport wasn't as competitive at that time, so the few women who did compete were able to succeed at multiple events. Case in point - 1952 Olympic LJ gold medalist Yvette Williams won the LJ, shot and discus at the 1954 Empire Games (at a time when British Empire / Commonwealth countries were near the top of world athletics, and when the Empire Games was taken very seriously by the top athletes - that's the famous Bannister-Landy clash for example).
Low Resistance sports are not athletics thus you question is irrelevant.
22 and counting wrote:
Decathlon doesn't count because they only compete against other decathletes. Phelps competes against event specialists, not just other 200 flyers.
JJK won both heptathlon and LJ against the best in the world. That's like winning IM and individual stroke events.
