By Spiro Zavos
August 19th 2008 @ 2:30am
Phelps is the greatest Olympic swimmer, not the greatest Olympian
Michael Phelps is the undoubtedly the greatest Olympian swimmer. The eight gold medals at the Beijing Olympics confirms this. At Munich, Mark Spitz swam two strokes, freestyle and butterfly, and collected seven gold medal.
The longest distance he swam was 200m. Phelps swam distances that ranged from 100m to 400m. And he swam all four strokes.
No swimmer - unless it is Phelps himself at London in 2012 - will beat the record he set at Beijing. This is a record for the ages.
“I’m lost for words,” Phelps said, in trying to explain what he had achieved.
Simply the greatest Olympian swimmer ever will have to do.
But the greatest Olympian?
Michael Johnson, himself a candidate for the greatest Olympian, makes this valid point: “If we could do the 200m forwards and backwards, track and field athletes would have won more medals. I’m just putting it into perspective.”
And this is a necessary perspective.
An athlete like Johnson has, at best, a chance of winning four gold medals. A distance runner or field events athlete, where there are no relays to bulk out the medal totals, or a rower, have at best two gold medal chances, but more generally only one.
So the number of medals won should not be the defining statistic in the search for the greatest Olympian.
The Times Online has a fascinating blog written by Calvin Shulman titled: Top 100 Olympic Athletes. Schulman devised a points system based on a scale of 12 points for a gold medal down to one point for an eighth place. Competitors in relays and team events are given half the points.
The 100th ranking athlete under this system was Daley Thompson, gold medal winner for the decathalon in 1980 and 1984, fourth-placed in 1988, seventh in 4×100m in 1984.
And the winner by the Schulman system?
Raymond Ewry (United States), gold medal in standing high jump 1900, standing long jump 1900, standing triple jump 1900, standing high jump 1904, standing long jump 1904, standing high jump 1904, standing high jump 1906, standing long jump 1906, standing high jump 1908, and standing long jump 1908.
Ewry won more gold medals (ten) and certainly moved a shorter distance to achieve them than any other athlete in the history of the Olympics.
The standing events were abolished in 1912. But we can gauge the athleticism of Ewry by the fact that his clearance in the standing high jump in 1904 was 1.60m and his world record in the standing long jump of 3.37m lasted into the 1930s.
With Raymond Ewry we have the sort of concocted array of events that Johnson suggested makes up a large part of the swimming events schedule.
A letter to the Sydney Morning Herald by Ron Sincalir of Bathurst seems to me to be the best comment on this issue of whether Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian: “Is he greater than the Czech Emil Zatopek, who at Helsinki in 1952 won the 5000m, 10,000m and the marathon? Is he greater than the British rower Sir Stephen Redgrave, who won gold at five consecutive Oympics, or the US legend Al Oerter, who won the discuss at four? Or our own Dawn Fraser, who won the 100m freestyle three times in a row?”
Or Raymond Ewry? Or Carl Lewis with nine gold medals over three Olympics in track and field events? Or Paavo Nurmi, with nine gold medals over three Olympics in distance running? Or Larissa Latynina with nine gold medals in gymnastics over three Olympics?
Are there any other nominations for this title?
Photo by Vironevaeh
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(26)
Benjamin said | August 19th 2008 @ 4:21am | Report comment
Clearly this is very hard to define, and although not my nomination, but if one were to consider the greatest Olympian as a true athlete then logically that would place the decathletes at an immediate advantage. Even then that brings up another debate that surfaces in many sports: is it better to be a ‘jack of all trades’ or a specialist? For example could Thompson be labelled a better athlete and therefore a better Olympian than somebody like Johnson, or Bolt, simply because he could do so many pursuits to such a high level of excellence? Should an Olympian like Redgrave be thought of less highly because rowing is largely a minority support and therefore there is less competition?
Doctor Best said | August 19th 2008 @ 6:51am | Report comment
Austrian sailor Hubert Raudaschl has competed in nine olympics. Amazing, but then sailors mainly sit down during competition, and swimmers have their body weight supported by water. So let’s talk about one the toughest of sports on the body - road cycling.
Jeannie Longo represented France in Beijing in the road race. This is her seventh Olympics. She has 13 world records, numerous hour records, victories in the women’s Tour de France, and four Olympic medals. And get this - she’s aiming for the London Olympics. She gets my vote as the greatest Olympian.
As a comparison in athletic longevity, the great Ken Rosewall made the Wimbledon final four months shy of his 40th birthday. When Jeannie won the Championship Of France this year, she was 49.
Benjamin said | August 19th 2008 @ 6:56am | Report comment
Cycling involves sitting down and no stress on the upper body. It is arguable that marathon running is tougher in terms of body stress, however a discussion about ‘toughness’ is rather facile.
Doctor Best said | August 19th 2008 @ 8:11am | Report comment
Benjamin - you’ll have to come with me one day to the US National Sports Testing Center and you’ll see the results for body stresses for different sports. There is huge stress on the upper body in road racing - just ask any road racer if you don’t believe the researchers. And I fail to see how anybody who follows various sports could think the question of toughness is simplistic. It’s the essence of most sports - why do you think there are winners and losers?
And speaking of losers, ask your doctor for some Zopiclone. You could take one before you watch your next Olympic event. You’ll enjoy it all the more with your eyes closed. .
Redb said | August 19th 2008 @ 8:35am | Report comment
I tend to rate the decathletes as the best Olympians. To be good at one sport is great and Phelps is the best ever. However the best olmpyian should be a great athlete in various sports a true all round champion.
Redb
Benjamin said | August 19th 2008 @ 8:36am | Report comment
Oh really, is that from holding the handlebars? You are claiming that road cycling is superior to sailing on the basis that it involves body stress and then yet you say that sailing is not comparable because sailors sit down. What do cyclists do then? I imagine that the bodies of marathon runners are in a worse state than cyclists during their respective retirements.
The question of toughness is both simplistic and innacurate. Not too mention rather juvenile as well. The essence of sports lies in skill and determination rather than the effect of that sport on the body. International rugby is comparable to sitting through two controlled crash tests yet I would never be ignorant enough to suggest that it was the toughest of sports. This thread was not to debate ‘tough’ sports at all. Archery is not a tough sport and yet it is one of the most challenging in the world. Clearly being a winner in this sport illustrates great skill, and no ‘toughness’.
Zopiclone, eh!? Shame your local GP couldn’t prescribe some polite pills. Why you would attempt to be so glib is beyond me.
sheek said | August 19th 2008 @ 8:38am | Report comment
Yeah, we tend to get carried away by the numbers racket. Fair enough to say Phelps is the greatest swimmer & most prolific gold medal winner, but a far cry from being the greatest Olympian, or athlete.
His 8 medals accounted for 50 percent of the mens swimming program. FIFTY PERCENT! Imagine an athlete competing in 50 percent of the mens or womens track program? That would be around 12 events. No way. The best any track/field athlete can hope for is 4 events/medals.
Interesting the media are not getting carried away, or so it seems. I think they’ve already heard the warning shots form people like Johnson & many blogs like ours, that being prolific & greatest are not necessarily the same thing.
Phelps deserves respect & admiration for his achievement, but let’s put everything in perspective, as Michael Johnson suggests.
Michael C said | August 19th 2008 @ 9:05am | Report comment
I love the Poms coming to grips with some new found success - - and deciding that they are simply doing well in ’sit down’ sports (like cycling, rowing etc).
There’s always the possibility of saying that a Decathlete is the greatest sports person………or………just a jack of all, master of none.
Number of golds isn’t the be all - we know, as not everyone get’s access to the same number of events.
However, for Phelps, he’s done it as an individual, as a part of a team and in the variety of strokes including the Individual medley. Given that he’s NOT doing this in a ’swimming decathlon’, i.e. he is competing in the ‘open’ version of each event against the best ’specialists’ in the world - - well, that rates his efforts very, very highly.
The obvious thing though, is that he compares with 7 gold won by …… another swimmer.
That’s all against whom that he should be compared.
Carl Lewis (clean or not) - - should only be compared with other track and field athletes……….the best of all………..Jesse Owens………….the results PLUS the intangible elements of the theatre/history/occasion.
Fragglerocker said | August 19th 2008 @ 9:49am | Report comment
If your looking for excellence in two wildly different events, it would be hard to ignore Walter Winans who competing as a shooter in 1908 won gold in the double-shot running deer event (and yes they used real deer), silver in the same event in 1912, and then won gold in the art events for his sculpture “An American Trotter”.
Spiro Zavos said | August 19th 2008 @ 10:31am | Report comment
Fragglerocker, That is a great call with Walter Winans. Also I like John Best’s nominations of Hubert Raudaschi (9 Olympics) and Jeannie Longo (7 Olympics and 3 medals).
Benjamin said | August 19th 2008 @ 11:10am | Report comment
Longevity is a key issue and Phelps has yet to demonstrate this. If longevity is therefore a measure of success then beyond the obvious candidates Aladar Gerevich, who won gold medals in sabre from 1932-1960, is worth considering.
A female athlete of note is Fanny Blankers-Koen, the “Flying Housewife”, who won 4 gold medals in the running events in 1948. She was barred from entering further events such as the high and long jump. WW2 curtailed her previous involvement.
chas said | August 19th 2008 @ 11:55am | Report comment
This is a no-win discussion. Only swimmers with their four strokes all of varying distances can possibly hope to rate as the athlete with the most gold medals. Track and Field Running could be extended to include Running Forwards (as we do now), Running Backwards ( to correspond with swimming’s backstroke), Hopping Forwards and Backwards and Walking on One’s Hands ( Forwards and Backwards}. All of these new events have as much right to be included in The Olympics as Beach Volleyball, Synchronised Swimming, Walking ( or Slow Running) or One-Legged Billiards. But their inclusion would bring parity to a programme that is currently unusual,illogical and irrational.
Benjamin said | August 19th 2008 @ 12:33pm | Report comment
How analytical. You’ve really distinguished yourself there. You’re right, I’m an idiot. The essence of sports is toughness.
Benjamin said | August 19th 2008 @ 12:57pm | Report comment
Best, just to clarify…
(i) How can you judge I know nothing about cycling given that there has been no actual discussion about the sport? Premature and optimistic on your part.
(ii) You rather churlishly claimed that cycling was the toughest of sports on the body. No sport can claim that. Perhaps if you were to be more specific then your argument would have merit, but you didn’t even bother to offer how one could judge this ‘toughness’. How many cyclists have retired punch drunk? As aforementioned - every international rugby match affects the body to the extent that the physical stresses experienced are equivalent to two controlled car crashes. Is that the case in road racing? I heard that American Football was pretty rough too. Do you think Joe Calzaghe has experienced a more or less physically stressful career than Lance Armstrong?
(iii) On the basest level you didn’t even bother to differentiate between mental and physical toughness. Thus to say that toughness is the essence of sports is all too generic.
It is probably no coincidence then that your follow up thread is purely vitriolic as opposed to analytical.
Zolton said | August 19th 2008 @ 2:15pm | Report comment
Doctor Best, this is a reminder to keep the threads on sport and not on cheap shots at fellow readers. Please take note, Zolton
Netrug said | August 19th 2008 @ 5:41pm | Report comment
When athletics have running backwards, skipping and hopping as well as free running ans separate disciplines and as medley relays, you can then compare swimming and athletics.
The greatest athletes are decathlon, pentathlon and triathlon competitors because of the different sports in which they compete.
Maybe there should be medals for each discipline and one for overall as in gymnastics.
Scotty in London (late of Gosford NSW) said | August 19th 2008 @ 5:53pm | Report comment
I’d nominate Paul Elvstrom as one of the greatest ever. Winner of single handed dinghy in the Fireflyin 1948, then the Finn in the next 3 Olympics, he revolutionised sailing with his inventions of the hiking strap and the boom vang. And wearing 3 heavy woollen jumpers.. Single-handed dingy in the heavyweight Finn is as demanding a sport as any, and Elvstrom knew it.He devised a bench at home so he could hike out for hours on end watching the TV or reading a book. He was stronger than the rest by a mile, and from strength and intelligence comes speed.
And I’m not sure on this but he came back years later and got a medal with his daughter in the Tornados….
eric said | August 19th 2008 @ 5:54pm | Report comment
Spiro, Could you clarify. You say Ewry won the standing high jump in 1908 twice, but you also say there were Olympics in , 1906. I believe these tenth anniversary games are not officially recognised. If so, it puts a different light on Ewry’s achievements.
sheek said | August 19th 2008 @ 6:02pm | Report comment
Benjamin,
Longevity? Romans or Greeks? Beatles or Stones? Ella or Lynagh? John or Bennett? Trumper or Bradman?
There’s an argument for both - the shooting comet & the stayer. Phelps’ place is secure as the Olympics most prolific gold medal accumulator & Swimming’s greatest swimmer.
But the debate will rage beyond our lifetimes, I imagine, that he is actually the greatest athlete to compete at the Olympics.
Indeed, I would suggest the queue goes around several blokes, made up of people willing to argue there are more deserving candidates for world’s greatest athlete.
And that wouldn’t change much even if he wins another 8 gold medals in 2012. All that will prove is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the structure of swimming, with too many events similar to each other.
Spiro Zavos said | August 19th 2008 @ 7:27pm | Report comment
Eric, there is an interesting Wikipedia article on the 1906 Olympics. You are right to point out that the IOC does not include medals won in these Games as official Olympic medals. But the Times Online article was probably right to include the medals won at these Games as ‘Olympic medals’ given that these Games were better run than previous or some later Games and apparently set the template for the way the Games were organised in the future.
eric said | August 19th 2008 @ 9:37pm | Report comment
Thanks for reply Spiro. However, my point was not only about the validity of the 1906 Olympics, but the fact that athletes of the time had an extra Games to collect medals. Imagine if Phelps was given another crack in two years time, then again in 2012!
Spiro Zavos said | August 19th 2008 @ 10:07pm | Report comment
Eric, Michael Phelps will have been at four Olympics if he presents at the London Games in 2012. Modern athletes have a much better chance of attending a number of Olympics than the early competitors did. So I think on these grounds we can allow the 1906 Games to be counted as part of the Olympics history.
stuff happens said | August 20th 2008 @ 2:12pm | Report comment
Good luck to you all - you’ll be discussing / arguing for ever without a conclusion.
In terms of the fittest/ strongest athletes I seem to recall that the BBC held a competion on this some years ago and the rowers came out on top.
BT2012 said | August 24th 2008 @ 9:07am | Report comment
Phelps may not be the greatest Olympian ever, but he’s in the top 5 for sure.
First, to address the whinging of the Track crowd: Track has more events, of a more similar nature, than Swimming. Any athlete wanting to duplicate Phelps’s haul just needs to run the 100, 200, 400, 110 hurdles, 400 hurdles, and three relays. All sprint events, all using the same motion and muscles. Compared to doing different strokes and distances, as Phelps has done, this should be easy. Toss in the long jump a la Carl Lewis, and the Steeplechase (if Michael Johnson wants to mock an Olympic event, he can start with this one and leave the swimming he doesn’t understand alone) and you could pull off 10 in one Olympics!
Impossible? Of course. Now you start to understand just what Phelps has accomplished - twice (his Athens performance was likewise amazing, for those of you talking about longevity). If you think it’s that much easier to swim multiple events like Phelps did, talk to Katie Hoff or Ryan Lochte, some of the most talented swimmers ever.
From the perspective of swimming, what Rebecca Adlington did was almost as great as what Usain Bolt did. After all, she crushed a record that many thought might be unbeatable for a long time, just as Bolt did in the 200m. Track people just don’t respect swimming, which is their prerogative, but it doesn’t give them the right to demean Phelps’s achievement. I despise golf, but am in awe of Tiger Woods.
Phelps is by far the greatest swimmer of all time. No other athlete in history, with the exception of Tiger Woods and Wilt Chamberlain, has so thoroughly dominated his sport. He may not be the greatest Olympian ever, but he belongs up there with the four or five other greats who’ve accomplished similar things.
BT2012 said | August 24th 2008 @ 9:17am | Report comment
“And that wouldn’t change much even if he wins another 8 gold medals in 2012. All that will prove is that there is something fundamentally wrong with the structure of swimming, with too many events similar to each other.”
Track has more events, more similar to one another, by far than swimming.
To argue as simplistically as you are doing, all a track athlete has to do is run the 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500, 5000, 10,000, and marathon as well as the 400 and 1600 relays. Can’t do anything simpler, or more similar, than running. Now add a couple of jumps and you can add the 110 and 400 hurdles.
Of course, Carl Lewis and Marion Jones proved that you can also add the long jump to that. And hell, what about the steeplechase?
Compared to the diversity of swimming strokes, the muscles and motions used in these events are incredibly, in fact tediously, similar.
Can’t be done? Why not? After all, many gymnasts master incredibly different apparati for multiple golds, and the stresses on their bodies make the stresses on runners look like a gentle massage.
whitnug said | September 29th 2008 @ 2:33pm | Report comment
I’d like to add my two penneth to this forum. I am perhaps a little older than some of the respondents so far, so my reflections go a little further back. I still rate “the Ebony Express”, (Jesse Owens to those who don’t know his nickname) as the greatest Olympian ever. This great man, an American negro, took on the might of the world, and the elite of the German athletes, in the Berlin stadium in 1936. Not only that, but he was under the scornful scrutiny of that negro-hating war criminal, Adolph Hitler. Jesse Owens won the 100 metres, 200 metres, long jump, and was a member of the victorious 4 x 100 metre relay team.
I didn’t see those 1936 Olympic Games (I was only 3 at the time), but in 1956 it was my greatest honour to meet Jesse Owens when he came to Australia as the US President’s personal ambassador.to the Melbourne Olympic Games. I won’t say that I haven’t washed my hand since he shook it, but it is a meeting that I remember forever.
So you see, Jesse Owens was not only the best athlete in the world, he also had to overcome the prejudices of an arrogant regime, and the dangers of an imminent world conflict.