Michael Phelps is NOT overrated - Page 14

On August 19 2008 21:50 Choros wrote:
Has anyone pointed out this interesting site about Michael Phelps?
Apparently he actually came second and didn't get the record.
http://www.001ofasecond.com/

On August 19 2008 21:00 theonemephisto wrote:Phelps has a ridiculous training regimen. I don't know about Kobe's, but I really doubt that you could say that anyone trains harder. He's been training something like 5-6 hours a day, every day for 4 years for these Olympics, and he practically never ever takes a day off.

And unfortunately, no one cares how good they are at a bunch of sports, they care about how well they excel in the sport that they play. Phelps has achieved a level of dominance in swimming that Kobe (and pretty much every other athlete competing) can only dream of. There are races that Phelps hasn't lost in 5-7 years. He just dominated the competition at the Olympics while swimming a schedule three times as difficult and as long than any other competitor. He broke 7 world records, and they were all already his own. He freaking beat Thorpe's time (BTW, best freestyler ever hands down) in the 200 free. He also won 7 golds at 2007 worlds, and he only didn't get 8 because a teammate false started a relay. He also set an American record in the 400 free relay (though it was broken later). He's achieved so much of a dominance that every single person in the field knows that when he swims, it's simply going to be a race for second (with few event exceptions, and maybe for Lockte in full form in the IMs). There simply isn't any chance for anyone else.

On August 20 2008 03:53 XaI)CyRiC wrote:Notice I said overall athlete, and that I was merely suggesting that an argument could be made. It's true that athletes should be judged by what sport they compete in, there is room for consideration of a person's raw athletic ability. In that respect, I don't think it's misleading or incorrect to consider an athlete's versatility and ability to perform other athletic feats.

While it's true that Phelps has dominated his sport in a way that no one ever has, it's also true that he is a specialist in every sense of the word. Almost every part of Phelps' body is structured in a way to maximize his ability to swim fast, but those same qualities make him ill-suited to competing in any sport outside of the water. It's even arguable that he may not be a great water polo player, since that sport is quite different from the type of swimming competitions he excels in. He was built to swim very quickly from one point to the other, which has been proven without a doubt, but there is room to doubt his versatility, and thus position as the best athlete in the world.

Consider that he competes in a sport where the only person he is really competing against is himself. The only person who can prevent him from reaching his goals (swimming a certain difference under a certain time) is himself, his competitors can't do anything to slow him down. Unlike athletes, like Kobe, who have to play a contact sport where there is actual interaction with opponents, Phelps doesn't even really have to acknowledge his opponents except to compare his time with. He doesn't have to read opponents, react to what they do, coordinate with teammates, etc. to nearly the same extent as others who play team sports, or even sports like tennis where you are actually going head-to-head with someone. There may be a certain amount of adjustment or reaction to what his opponents do, but Phelps doesn't have to deal with any of that to anywhere near the same level as a lot of other athletes do. I mention this to bring attention to the fact that, when you consider his limitations to the water and the limitations of his sport, Phelps is a rather limited athlete overall, as most other athletes (i.e. runners, basketball players, football players, etc.) are able to compete at a high level in their sport while also being able to compete at a pretty high level in other sports as well.

If we're going to measure him solely as a swimmer when considering his status as an athlete, then we should restrict his accomplishments to that particular sport as well. Too many people are focusing too much on the number of gold medals he's won, and using that number to declare him the premier athlete of the world (and in history for some) solely because of that number. That's an unfair way to compare athletes for the reasons I've discussed above. Many people then point to the fact that he's done something that's never been done before, even by other swimmers. That argument remains unconvincing because there are many athletes in other sports who accomplish feats that no other person has ever been able to do in their respective sports all the time as well. Phelps is great, no doubt about it and no argument from me otherwise, but people are taking this too far when they start declaring him a better athlete than so-and-so or a better Olympian than so-and-so like it's a fact, when it clearly is not.

On August 20 2008 04:12 likeaboss wrote:
Phelps is amazing but hes not the best athelete in the world. That spot belongs to tiger woods who has more drive, more mental toughness, and better physique compared to his other competitors. There was even an article on yahoo ill look for where he was voted the best athelte with micheal jordan a close second because of his domination, insane drive, and grueling ruitine

On August 20 2008 04:42 theonemephisto wrote:
BTW, I think that people saying that swimming is a sport so conductive to medal winning is a little bit misleading, considering that the only other person to win 8 medals at an Olympics was a gymnast.

I think that a lot of people are mislead to think that the events are so similar because exposure to swimming is pretty lacking, and I think that people have gotten used to watching Phelps. Most of the time, the most dominating swimmer's will be able to win consistently at 2-3 events, something which I think is fairly reasonable and that is somewhat consistent with other high-medal events (gymnastics, track).

On August 18 2008 16:40 XaI)CyRiC wrote:
Article about whether Phelps is the "greatest Olympian ever"
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/15/sports/olympics/15longman.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

Excerpts:






Article about all the world records being broke in swimming:
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/08/11/sports/olyrecords.php?page=2

Excerpts:

On August 20 2008 04:57 XaI)CyRiC wrote:


Swimming is a sport conducive to medal winning, but it's not the only one. However, there are factors that make it so that it's arguably at least a little bit easier to win many medals in swimming than those others. I don't think it's far-fetched to say that the different events in swimming are quite a bit more similar than the different events in sports like gymnastics. The person who I assume you're referring to as the gymnast who also won 8 medals in one Olympics (Aleksandr Dityatin) did so by medaling in events as dissimilar as rings, pommel horse, vault, horizontal bar, and floor exercise. You can't tell me that those are as similar as the four different swimming strokes, regardless of how many meters a person is swimming.

Further, as quoted in a previous post of mine in this thread, there are other factors which make it easier for swimmers to compete in so many events. I'll requote the relevant portion here:

Sprinters in swimming tend to train much longer distances than sprinters in track, gaining superior aerobic capacity.

Perhaps the best argument in Phelps’s favor is that he is swimming a range of distances that convert to track races from a quarter mile to a mile (sprinting is about five times faster than swimming). No quarter miler is also dominant as a miler.

Phelps has superior aerobic capacity, compared with track sprinters, gained by swimming more than nine miles a day during peak training periods, said Genadijus Sokolovas, the director of sports science for USA Swimming.

“Track and field sprinters come to their races from short-distance training,” Sokolovas said. “They do a lot of speed work, not as much endurance. As a result, sprinters don’t recover so well. They don’t have enough aerobic capacity. If they trained differently, it might be a different situation. Michael’s ability to recover after such high-volume training and race is amazing.”