Phelps is the greatest Olympic swimmer, not the greatest Olympian
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By Spiro Zavos, 19 Aug 2008 Spiro Zavos is a Roar Expert
- Tagged:
- athletes, Beijing Olympics, Mark Spitz, Michael Phelps, Olympian, Olympics, Phelps
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 4x100m 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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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).