Quote:
Originally Posted by Damien
Is Phelps the greatest ever? I dislike measuring it in terms of medals since swimming has a absurd amount of different events which differ from each other only slightly (in comparison in Athletics where people have sprinting, hurdles, high jump and so on). Even having the chance to win 8 gold medal during a single Olympics is crazy.
|
Despite what I said earlier about Eric Heiden, I think Phelps probably is the greatest ever. Just look at Bejing. Even disregarding the relays, Phelps took Gold in 100 and 200 m Butterfly, 200m Freestyle, and the 200 and 400 m Individual medley. That's 3 distances, two strokes plus the medleys. You'd be hard pressed to find a track athlete that excels in the 100-400m range, and it's not that common for swimmers to compete over that range either. It's still tough to compare him to Heiden who won everything from 500m to 10,000m, but Heiden did that 30 years ago when people didn't specialise as much as they do these days. Then consider Phelps's haul in Athens, as well as London. So yes, I do think he is the greatest ever.