Michael Phelps – 19 gold medals – Greatest Olympian?

Am I the only one who thinks this is a little unfair, as a lot of the swimming events are quite close to each other in terms of the attributes required to do well, so if you are very good at one, chances are you are going to be as good at another.

He’s got 19 golds in 4 games over 12 years. An mtb xc racer would have to be competing at Olympic gold medal level for 72 years to be considered as good.

Greatest Olympian? – no
Greatest Swimmer – Yes

Greatest Olympian? – no
Greatest Swimmer – Yes

+1

it’s all tripe for sports “journalists” and presenters to babble on about

and swimming gets too many medals as a sport in comparison to others, if you can win more than 2 golds in a games they need to rethink the events

i agree to an extent but the mtber could have also competed in road and tt events if he was that good. Or at least that may be the view on your average swimming forum

At least noone has mentioned redgrave…

Greatest Olympian? – no
Greatest Swimmer – Yes

Indeed…getting medals for swimming lots of different types of strokes is like Usain Bolt getting gold medals for the 100m hopping, 200m running backwards etc.

If swimming was as ‘pure’ as running, there would only be one stroke…freestyle.

In equivalent terms, athletics should include for each distance running backwards, egg and spoon and sack-race, plus two relays to even things up!

Its a fair point, there are no athletics medals for running backwards or skipping 100m.

The best sprinter in the world can win 3 golds – 100m, 200m and 100m relay (or 200m, 400m and 4 x 400m. Very occasionally sprinter make good long jumpers but its pretty rare

the best swimmer can attempt to win 100m free, 200m free, 100m back, 200m back, 100m breast, 200m breast, 100m fly, 200m fly, 100m free relay, 200m free relay, 200m medley, 100m medley relay. That’s 12 golds!

Have wondered about this. But then I’m not a swimmer so don’t really know what I’m talking about 🙂

Phelps aside, how common is it to win multiple medals as a top swimmer? E.g. if you are the best 200m freestyle, is it almost a given than you’ll win 100m and 400m too? Same with the different styles of stroke. Is that common or is Phelps just a phenomenon?

If you look at the most medals won by individuals, of the top 20 there are 6 swimmers. But then there are 8 gymnasts. (And gymnasts and swimmers make up most of the top 100.)

Indeed…getting medals for swimming lots of different types of strokes is like Usain Bolt getting gold medals for the 100m hopping, 200m running backwards etc.

Seems a bit silly but when you think about it the demands are very different. Is it really common to be able to win gold across different strokes? Think Spitz did butterfly, freestyle and medley but I don’t think there are many others.

the best swimmer can attempt to win 100m free, 200m free, 100m back, 200m back, 100m breast, 200m breast, 100m fly, 200m fly, 100m free relay, 200m free relay, 200m medley, 100m medley relay. That’s 12 golds!

… but how common is that? Are we just looking at an exceptional case of someone who can actually be competitive across all those disciplines?

And I guess a sprinter could also attempt the hurdles 😉

i agree to an extent but the mtber could have also competed in road and tt events if he was that good.

Neff was well up there in the ladies road race. I think she finished in the Armitstead group.

TPbiker, yeah I get that, only using mtb as its the sport I know. But for the sports where you only have one gold available every 4 years such as golf or (I think) archery etc, it seems unlikely that they will step up in tae kwon do and shot put to up their gold totals

didn’t we used to say lance Armstrong was the greatest cyclist ?

just saying like … I’ll get my coat from the cupboard marked, always ignore sports idols.

Phelps is clearly a phenomenon, but there’s not a huge physiological difference between 200 and 400 swimming – they’re like 800 and 1500 running, where the double is hardly uncommon. 100 is a bit different, but not hugely so and if you’re as good as Phelps then 200 speed might be enough to win.

Phelps is a butterfly specialist, but most butterfly swimmers will also swim freestyle and he’s good enough at those to make the medley not a huge stretch.

The main issue though is that there is the opportunity for a good enough swimmer to win lots of medals, whilst a phenomenon in a different sport doesn’t have the same opportunity. Nobody is suggesting Phelps isn’t an incredible athlete, just that his medal haul doesn’t prove he’s the best.

didn’t we used to say lance Armstrong was the greatest cyclist ?

No. Some people did but they were only talking about one race. Taking drugs into account obviously, he was only the best TdF winner. Merckx would still be the greatest cyclist, based on number and types of wins, and there are other riders who won as many or more Grand Tours than Armstrong with a more rounded palmares.

I’ve won as many Grand Tours as Armstrong

it’s all tripe for sports “journalists” and presenters to babble on about

+1

I really like the Olympics but we always get this “greatest Olympian” BS.

tpbiker – Member

At least noone has mentioned redgrave…

I’ve won as many Grand Tours as Armstrong

Don’t brag, so have the rest of us. (I’m sure you know what I meant? 😉 )

Hmm, he has quite a lead:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_multiple_Olympic_medalists

It just the nature of that discipline. If you include a sport in the olympics then that competition is going to be more or less like any other tournament for that sport. For swimming a swimming championships would include all those distances and strokes – lots of small competitions and therefore lots of winners or an opportunity for someone to win a lot of times. Similarly martial arts, boxing etc have lots of weight categories and again lots of potential winners. But olympic football is like any other football tournament, Olympic tennis is structured like any other tournament and so there a few winners in those discipline because thats what the sport is like.

What makes it an issue is some see it as a national competition – a competition between nations rather than a competition between athletes from those nations and the medal tally counts for more than those individual successes. So daily theres a tally up of which nations are the winningest. Thats why some countries have state sponsored doping and why the UK has been strategically supporting sports like swimming, cycling, rowing etc in recent years – putting effort into disciplines where there are multiple medal opportunities for our investment. The result is we appear to punch above our weight in terms of sporting achievement but the reality is we’ve focused on the sports with the most opportunities.

I’ve never really got all the swimming medals. Different distances yes; different strokes utter nonsense. Sure Adam Peaty has just swum very fast, 100m in 57.13 but the world record for freestyle is 46.91. You could swim freestyle and have time to get out the pool and pour Peaty a beer to celebrate his new world record before he’ finished.
If that’s a valid olympic sport then we need to let Bolt pick up a few golds for running backwards and hopping round the track, hell a 3 legged race would be a match for butterfly. 🙂

Well we do have both walking and running races in the Olympics.

Anyway, it’s clearly this guy when you combine proficiency in numerous disciplines and personal style and charisma…

Why is there an assumption Bolt would be any good at running backwards or hopping?

@chapaking has it, that was the first name that came to my mind as well although I suspect each country has their own version

One thing that he is great at though is performing at his best, over and over.

Most olympians might just have to focus on one moment of brilliance to get them a medal, whereas Phelps has to keep delivering over several days and deal with the physical & mental recovery to peak again.

I’d find it impossible to decide who is the greatest Olympian across such a variety of sports – it’s just unfair to compare.

@chapaking has it, that was the first name that came to my mind as well although I suspect each country has their own version

I don’t get the derision for Michael Phelps, I do get that relatively speaking, the sport of swimming has more than its fair share of medal opportunities at the Olympic Games, but… You still have to turn up and beat the competition, which Michael Phelps has done time and time again over a 12 year period already!

Besides, if we’re judging based upon success in different disciplines, then surely the greatest track athlete of all time, Carl Lewis, needs a special mention?

As a swimmer, his record is amazing, but the amount of different races he can enter in each Olympics makes it very hard to compare his tally to the likes of Sir Steve Redgraves’ 5 gold rowing medals over 5 Olympics.

Ah, but what you’re forgetting there, and most people seem unaware of is that Redgrave also has a bronze medal – which raises the question of why he only once tried to compete in more than one event at an Olympics?

Carl Lewis won medals across 100m, 200m and long jump, then there’s a relay on top.

Gymnasts can win a whole host of medals too.

Theoretically if someone could stay at the top over multiple Olympics a field and track athlete or a gymnast could gain as many as a swimmer.

er, you’ve noticed that Phelps now has 19 golds – he won the first in 2004, so 18 across 3 games. How many would Carl Lewis have won?

I think there are theoretically 6 on offer for a female gymnast (8 for men), though some of the disciples are too specialist to excel in them all – it would be like Phelps winning golds in backstroke and breaststroke as well. Phelps has the advantage of events doing the same thing over multiple distances, and multiple relays as well.

aracer

Ah, but what you’re forgetting there, and most people seem unaware of is that Redgrave also has a bronze medal – which raises the question of why he only once tried to compete in more than one event at an Olympics?

Fair point about Sir Steve having one “Coxed pair” bronze from 1988, along with the “Coxless pair” gold he won in the same year.

My hunch is that Olympic rowers rarely do multiple events is partially down to exertion of rowing 2000m over multiple rounds with other team members at a competitive pace (~5min55secs for four-man), plus the time scheduling for the different events giving the athletes too little recovery time between round for different events.

By comparison, at a quick glance, a vast majority of Phelps’ individual races (or as part of a 4-man medley) were less than 2 minutes each.

I suspect the calorific burn per race is massively higher for the rowing, thinking back to my fitter days around 2004, I used to burn something like 600+ Calories doing 2000m on a row machine at the gym… Going nothing like Olympic standard!

18 medals in 3 games, though one in an event they no longer do, and not all gold (Phelps has 23 medals) – she won a medal in all but one of the possible events, and did win gold at the world championships in the events she didn’t win at the Olympics, so clearly just about possible (or was once)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larisa_Latynina

Wiggins is a greater Olympian than Phelps.

Looking at the table, you’d have to see that he’s won nearly twice as many medals as the next best swimmer. So in Olympic history, is there anyone else who stands that far apart from their peers? If not, then he’s a pretty good shout. Of course it’s not just about medals though. He still holds 7 world records, and has set 39 in total.

[swimming rant]

Swimming has way too many events at the Olympics, mostly minor variations on a theme and I don’t know why they’re there. Other than crawl the only reason for the other strokes with the current set-up is just to make life awkward. Backstroke is the equivalent of just running backwards, stroke is just skipping and butterfly is pretty much the hopping race. Introduce the 100m/200m hopping, 100m/200m skipping and 100m/200m running backwards as well as the associate relays and Bolt would probably clean up in these and become the greatest ever Olympian.

If they did a better spread of distances to replicate the sprint/middle distance and longer distance running events I’d be more interested.

[/swimming rant]

And steeplechase is just running with a few obstacles, ditto hurdles.

Most Olympic events are fairly arbitrary.

Assume that those who don’t like races for different strokes aren’t fans of Keirin or half the track cycling events either.

If they did a better spread of distances to replicate the sprint/middle distance and longer distance running events I’d be more interested.

1500m hurdles would be a crowd pleaser

Jim Thorpe

ignore the lazy Indian bullshit – this guy worked bloody hard to get this “fit” decades before anyone else…..

I just looked up athletes who’d won 3 or more gold medals across different Olympic games. It’s a much longer list than I expected and had heard of very few of them.

Swimming has way too many events at the Olympics, mostly minor variations on a theme

see also: fencing, essentially the same event with 3 different “swords”

And what about athletes whio have won gold at completely different sports?
Swimming say, with a bit of JUdo, and maybe Archery, balancing on their head, blindfold.