Swimming is niche. How many men train at an elite level, a few thousand? Lmfao
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About the "glory" of gold Olympic medals?
Do you recall what did the kaiser with Jess Owens?or what did Mohamed Ali of his gold medal?11 -
8 of the top 15 200im's of all time (LCM, he's even more dominant in SCM) are lochte, including the top 2 and the current WR
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Phelps holds a 16-4 advantage head-to-head against Lochte in major competitions (
Olympics, World Championships, Pan Pacific Championships and Olympic Trials). It's not close. Phelps was 12-0 in the rivalry through the 2008 Olympics.51 -
new Mexico wrote:
louSwimming is niche. How many men train at an elite level, a few thousand? Lmfao
Ridiculous to suggest he is the greatest athlete. Is Katie Ledecky the great women's athlete? Could she even touch a basketball net? Could she do a 48 inch box jump? could she long jump 22 feet? Of course not. She shines in a niche sport and nothing else. She is bouyant because she has a lot of fat. Just stop with this nonsense.
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Four pages and no one has stated two obvious points:
1) With all M.P.s medals, he only has one Olympic freestyle individual gold medal, a 200m freestyle gold medal from a long time ago. The best swimmers swim freestyle individual events. M.P. does not have a legacy of being a great freestyle swimmer.
2) Elite swimmers recover quicker than elite runners because one of the reasons for runner fatigue which is not measurable is fatigue due to gravity. Runners are slamming their feet against a hard surface over and over. Elite swimmers almost always swim multiple events in Olympics and/or W.C. Swimmers are not fighting gravity. Gravity is not beating up a swimmer's body as runners suffer impact fatigue and impact injuries.
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DeadLegs12 wrote:
I will say he is probably more dominant in his sport than some of the other names mentioned, however I won’t go as far as calling him the greatest athlete.
An athlete posses many skills such as, speed, strength, endurance, agility, hand eye coordination, mental fortitude, skill. To me the greatest athlete would have high levels in all of these things and not just a few. The greatest athlete can be thrown into pretty much any physical challenge and do well.
Honestly the greatest Athlete is probably someone who is not even the best at their sport, but is really good and would also be really good in other sports.
Tl;Dr Michael Phelps is a great athlete, but being the best at one sport doesn’t make you the greatest athlete ever. definitely the best swimmer of all time though
I think the spirit of the question is not a granular thesis of hand eye coordination, but rather the clear fact that regardless of how many medal opportunities there are in swimming, he is still light years ahead of everyone. Who is his peer? In any sport? What other athete is as dominant. I thought so.
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Edwin Moses.
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Mikeh33 wrote:
Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:
As objective measurement, I'd go with the medal count.
Phelps has 28 individual gold medals in Olympics or World Championships. Ledecky has 20.
2nd among men is Sun Yang (a doper) with 14. Hosszu has 12 for the 2nd place among women.
No Phelps has 28 Olympic medals. Add in World Championships and the number goes much higher.
How many of his 28 Olympic medals were INDIVIDUAL GOLD medals?
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yup..... wrote:
He's DOMINATED. Swimming allows multi-events, but still much better than anyone else.
I don’t think swimming is a big enough sport for any athlete to be listed as greatest athlete… the pool (no pun intended) of elite swimmers is just too small… Jordan dominated basketball which is a sport that attracts countless elite freak athletes swimming just doesnt have the depth or crazy elite genetic freaks, same with football players, soccer or even running… I would think it would be tough to name anyone out of this list as the greatest athlete… definitely could call people in other sports the most dominant, Phelps may win that.
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Nonsense. What percentage of boys / men ever compete in swimming? My bet, much less than 1%.
Like trying to suggest Ryan Hall is the greatest athlete because he invented the deadlift - mile event and is the best in the world at it... Nevermind he's the only one to ever compete in this event.
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easy test wrote:
You know how I know Jordan is the best?
Because every argument like this starts by comparing an athlete too Jordan, not the other way around. The argument for them needs to made by comparing them to Jordan, but no argument needs to be made for Jordan. It's self evident.
Jordan the best? You’ve obviously never heard of Wilt Chamberlain. Jordan couldn’t score like Wilt, and he couldn’t rebound like Wilt. Jordan never left the league in assists AS A GUARD; Wilt did it as a center.
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yup..... wrote:
He's DOMINATED. Swimming allows multi-events, but still much better than anyone else.
The best athlete of all time is probably Amen or Ausur Thompson, or maybe JuVaughn Harrison
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Yeah, I'm going to cast a vote for Wilt too: strength, speed, jumping ability, dominance, only player ever to lead league in scoring, rebounding, and assists ... still holds the most NBA records (72).
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Real Obvi wrote:
Mikeh33 wrote:
Not so. You listed the best freestylers. The best swimmers in the world are those who do multiple events or the Individual medley, which is a race with all four strokes. Phelps is easily the greatest individual medley swimmer who ever lived.
Some people consider events like backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly to be the equivalent of track events featuring backward running 800 meters or skipping 1500 meters. Basically silly - not something to be taken seriously.
As such, only the freestyle is of any relevance when considering best swimmers.
For my money, I think that TRUE freestyle - not limited to the crawl stroke - should be the only swimming event (with various distances). Swim any way you want, fastest over the given distance is the true champion.
No one who understands the sport thinks this way. I’m not being rude, it’s just the truth.
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Sally Vix wrote:
new Mexico wrote:
louSwimming is niche. How many men train at an elite level, a few thousand? Lmfao
Ridiculous to suggest he is the greatest athlete. Is Katie Ledecky the great women's athlete? Could she even touch a basketball net? Could she do a 48 inch box jump? could she long jump 22 feet? Of course not. She shines in a niche sport and nothing else. She is bouyant because she has a lot of fat. Just stop with this nonsense.
No one would accuse Katie Ledecky of having a lot of fat, or suggest that has anything to do with her ability to swim fast.
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Just Another Hobby Jogger wrote:
Mikeh33 wrote:
No Phelps has 28 Olympic medals. Add in World Championships and the number goes much higher.
How many of his 28 Olympic medals were INDIVIDUAL GOLD medals?
13 were individual gold. 3 more were silver or bronze.
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Having coached swimming for 50 years, Phelps is the all time best "swimming success." With the specialization of all sports during these past 50 years no one can know who truly is the greatest "athlete" as those who would be candidates are unable to prove their expertise in enough additional sports.
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yup..... wrote:
RastaMon Goose wrote:
Imagine a guy who is one of the greatest NFL players of his time.
Oh, and he also played major league baseball, on a championship team.
Oh, and he ALSO was a dominant basketball player on a barnstorming team, AND was a championship level ballroom dancer.
Just for good measure, he won the decathlon and the pentathlon in the same olympics, dominating the competition in a way that no other decathlete has done since.
And he won the last event of the decathlon running in 2 misfit shoes that he found in a trashcan because someone had stolen his shoes.
Dwight Eisenhower, who competed against him in football, said "He could do everything anybody else could do and do it better.”
Let him watch swimming for a week, then throw him in the swimming pool against Michael Phelps, and he'd have a shot at beating him. Put him in the ring against Rocky Marciano, there's no chance that Rocky walks out conscious.
Everyone else is just competing for 2nd greatest athlete in history.
I'm talking most dominant in their sport. I thought that was obvious, given my OP.
What in your OP makes that obvious?
Nothing you stated made it seem like you were speaking about one sport. Especially when you then compared Phelps to people in other sports.20 -
Greatest all round athlete would be a decathlete, a gymnast, or Wilt Chamberlain
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