Phelps Phony
Ok, I love Phelps. He's a tremendous athelete. But...
Come ON already! I'm already tired of him. What I'm most tired of is him being called things like "the greatest olympian ever", "the worlds best athelete" and "Most Gold Medals Ever".
First of all the greatest athlete and Olympian titles seems a pretty heavy title to place on a swimmer. It's not like he also runs track. He's basically amazing at one event. The "Greatest Ever" would need to be good a plethora of events. And NO different strokes don't count as different things.
And although he technically has the most gold medals ever they are all in swimming! Most other athletes only get one shot every 4 years to win 1 gold. Muhammad Ali only got to box once. He didn't get to Box under a whole variety of of boxing type things. Phelps get the possibility of swimming a variety of strokes at a variety of lengths with a variety of team mates.
Here is my new proposed boxing breakdown:
Heavy Weight Singles, 15 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, 10 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, 5 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Left hand tied behind back, 15 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Left hand tied behind back, 10 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Left hand tied behind back, 5 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Right hand tied behind back, 15 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Right hand tied behind back, 10 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Right hand tied behind back, 5 Rounds
Heavy Weight Singles, Medley (1 Round each of standard, left-tied, right-tied then repeat), 15
Heavy Weight Singles, Medley (1 Round each of standard, left-tied, right-tied then repeat), 10
Heavy Weight Singles, Medley (1 Round each of standard, left-tied, right-tied then repeat), 5
Then you move on to Heavy Weight Doubles were partners trade off and do it all over again.
I'd love to have seen Ali or Foreman do this! They'd have gotten dozens of medals at a time. Then again, you'd get so beat up in the first one you'd be tired for the 2nd match. But I guess everyone else would be too. (Don't bother comparing Phelps' crazy schedule to this.) I guess you could change the rounds from 15-10-5 to 5-3-1. That would be short. Swimmers can swim a long way they just arbitrarily stop at 200m. Why not a 1 round boxing sprint?
I think Swimming should be handled like Gymnastics. There should be an all around Gold Medal. I'm more impressed that Phelps won in two consecutive Olympics than I am at the number of medals. I wonder who the true "Greatest Ever" is? It needs to be someone who won like a Gold Medal (in a real event) in 3 consecutive Olympics. Or won Gold in more than one type of event.
And the last word on Phelps: he's an amazing swimmer but lets not forget he's also a drunk driver.
Labels: Olympics
posted by Trey Laminack @ 9:34 AM
23 comments
23 Comments:
Ok, I have a serious problem with your very weak analysis of Phelps. For one it doesn't matter that it is in swimming. He still has to win every event he is in. Phelps not only wins them, HE BREAKS WORLD RECORDS!!!! Not to mention the competiton is fierce in swimming and he does not just win by a finger length he wins by body lengths. So what if boxing only has limited medaling opportunities, it's not Phelps problem. He is doing what he has trained and set his goals to do, and that is swimming. We don't say oh well Tiger Woods and Micheal Jordan aren't great because they play one sport only. Also yes different strokes matter because they are technically different and some ARE harder to perform than others. I TOTALLY think Phelps is the GREATEST athlete of our generation if he completes his goal. If he doesn't Micheal Jordan and Tiger Woods are still two great guys to follow. He is the sport of swimming, he is bigger than the sport which gives him such status as Jordan and Woods. Rethink your analysis on Phelps again and give real thought to what he is doing and how truely AMAZING HE IS!!! I am also sure God forgives, so holding such a mistake over his head seems kinda wrong. He has probably learned from his mistakes.
Stephen by the way.
I have to agree with Steven. Being a past swimmer myself there is no way that I could perform in all four strokes, I only did two well. There are alot of short distance runners who can not run marathons and that would also be the difference between a 100 and and 800. So...regardless it is a pretty good accomplishment, but where I will agree with you is that he is getting way too much media attention and cover when other American athletes should also be recieiving kudos for what they are doing. It is like 3rd in the world just doesn't count anymore.
The ancient Greeks claimed that the pentathletes where the greatest of the olympians. The events of the pentathlon, in order, were:
short foot race
wrestling
long jump
javelin throw
discuss throw
I actually kind of agree with you. Greatest Athlete Ever kind of seems a bit of a stretch for someone who does one sport. He's absolutely amazing, but best ATHLETE of all time? Its a possibility but it may be thrown around a bit much.
And to whichever McB wrote before, there was a really interesting article about world records in swimming and how they're really not that special. If you think about it, track a record gets broken once in a generation. In swimming, if you don't break a world record in your gold medal swim, its almost like your gold isn't even worth anything because you didn't break it. Its nothing amazing...happens all the time. Once again, still a very cool thing, but not necessarily a huge deal - especially when a lot of it can be achieved through technology - the swimsuits, the depth of the pool, etc. Look at it this way: if a baseball player used a metal bat and hit the longest homerun in history, you would rationalize it away as "yeah, but he used a metal bat." You could really do the same thing with swimming and the 9 foot pool.
Oh and Adam brings up the same point that Vanessa just brought up when I told her about this post...she said 'yeah, it seems like the greatest athlete should be the person who wins the gold in decathalon or something."
And for my third and final post...here's how we decide: Michael Phelps, Michael Johnson, Lance Armstrong. Head to head. Triathalon. Winner takes "Best Athlete" title. :)
Ok... so will you entertain "most consistent Olympian" with an asterisk to indicate his DUI? Come on... the man in annihilating everyone! Then comes back less than an hour later to do it again!
You have to give the Man credit... he was "designed" to swim! Double joints, long torso, shorter legs, huge wingspan. This only prompts me to wonder what I was "designed" for and have overlooked for nearly 30 years. What if I was supposed to be the next great rhythmic gymnast. Twirling strings DOES intrigue me...
I am jealous I can't eat 12K calories a day... I should probably only eat maybe a thousand...
Oh... and your Americanness should prompt you to desire no less from all of our athletes. We have a lot of medals to get to pass China in overall gold count... Mikeys just doing his part... :)
Emily I imagine Skip Bayless wrote that article and I don't need to infrom myself with the biased ramblings from a sport reporter. Yes! BEST ATHLETE OF ALL TIME, if he completes his goal. Again You don't have to be great at many things. You just have to be larger than your sport and believe me there are only a few that are just that. To say it's not a huge deal is just plain crazy talk. It is a GIGANTIC deal. 6 Golds, 6 World Records. Um let me check.....yeah nope I don't see anyone else doing that. Oh but it's easy. Oh so I guess next Olympics we will see this exact same thing. Ya know since it's so easy. Hmmm...people baffle me. Oh and the metal bat analogy. WHAT? Last time I checked they do this sport on their own merit. They don't attach boat propellers to their backs, at least not yet. The more I ready Trey's and Emily's post the more I question some people's thought process.
Mark Spitz got 7 golds and 7 world records in 1972, but I haven't heard much in my life about him being the greatest athlete ever. If Phelps gets his 8 does that really make him that much better? Or is this whole things just overhyped? I'm just sayin, give some credit and press to the 40+ other American athletes that have won medals. Besides think how much faster Spitz would have been if he had just shaved his mustache or put on a swim cap.
YES! Why? Because he has the most in O-LYM-PIC HIS-TO-RY!!You can say, "we'll what about Carl Lewis?" Umm..who has more? No matter what name you give, they don't have more than Michael Phelps! What I think everyone has a real problem with is the media. It's not Phelps fault he is getting so much attention, He is just out to get his goals and capture a piece of history. Thank NBC for the overwhelming airtime Phelps gets. But I guess some people don't like seeing such success. I guess it makes them wondering what if. I just think wow, in my life time I saw the greatest athlete EVER!
Wow, ok, I guess I didn't realize this was personal. I guess some people are trying to live vicariously through amazing athletes. I don't think anyone here has commented that Phelps is out overhyping himself or that any of this is his fault. All I'm sayin is that all the other amazing athletes should get some credit for devoting their lives to their sports and acheiving their goals of Olympic Gold. And as for the theory of having the most olympic medals making the greatest athlete ever... yeah, I guess your right, because for the last 40 years, gymnast Larissa Latynina from Russia has reigned supreme as the greatest athlete ever with 9 golds and 18 overall olympic medals. You've all heard of her right?
I just think he looks cute in his swim suit.
I didn't say worlds greatest athlete. I am talking strickly USA here. I also didn't say that other athlete's deserved not to be mentioned. My comments are geared towards the original post. I agree all athlete's should get talked about. But phelps is the greatest athlete in my life time, if he get's his gold tomorrow. Also, I am talking Gold here people, because it's the Gold that makes you the best. Being third best is great and all but it doesn't make you larger than the sport. Oh and so not taking this personal I just LOVE debate and conflict and everyone just keeps feeding it!
But we were talking about the "greatest athlete EVER" this whole time. I agree with Trey that if he comes back in the next olympics, or possibly even the next TWO olympics and continues to win golds then maybe we can talk. And I too love the debate as well as good natured ribbing. Is this a comment # record for you Trey? But I think that the greatest athlete ever, American or not, should be someone who could excel in a variety of things. Like if you took away the sport that they are larger than away and pitted them head to head in other sports who would be the better athlete? I'm pretty sure that Bo Jackson could've beat Phelps in ANYTHING other than swimming. In my eyes that makes for a better athlete. But I digress, nobody can say that Phelps is not the greatest swimmer of all time, and that puts him in the history books, and I'm proud to say that an American (STILL) has that title.
I know why Adam is bitter, it's because he's on the west coast and doesn't get the great live feeds we do here back in Texas. NBC sure gave the people on the west coast a raw deal.
Hehe I love getting Stephen riled up about things. :)
It's official GREATEST ATHLETE EVER!!
Kudos Trey! This looks like the political debate postings on MSN or something now! Your blog has truly proven its blogliciousness!
Swimming does have an all-around event, it's called the individual medley (which Phelps dominated). I don't know that I would call him that greatest athlete ever, but the fact that he has more gold medals that anyone in the history of the Olympics makes a pretty strong case for him being the greatest Olympian ever.
Adam Thomas, by the way, Leslie's husband. Saw your blog when Leslie was reading and had to comment.
I am about two weeks behind on this whole conversation, but I really enjoyed the comments. I have to say, swimming is by far one of the toughest, if not the toughest, sports out there. Every stroke is different and requires a different kind of strength and skill. You can debate it, but no on has ever put on a more impressive Olympic performance than Phelps. That is all. :)
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