Phelps and what I don't understand about Olympic swimming medals

[ZeroClub]

In swimming, separate swim techniques constitute separate events. Olympic swimming isn't "just swim as fast as you can for 200 meters." It is "swim as fast as you can for 200 meters with your legs and arms going in this particular way."

Fast swimmers tend to swim fast across a variety of techniques (strokes).

Because each swim technique is considered a unique event, a truly great swimmer, such as Phelps, has the opportunity to participate in (and win) many events.

There are at least five styles of high jumping (Scissors, Eastern cut-off, Western roll, Straddle technique, and Fosbury Flop). But the High Jump does not have separate events for each technique. Instead, the Olympic high jump event is about "who can clear the highest bar."

Charles Austin won the 1996 Olympic Gold medal in the high jump.

If there were separate Scissor, Eastern cut-off, Western roll, Straddle, and Fosbury Flop High Jump competitions, there is a great chance that Charles Austin would have won several more medals during the 1996 Olympics.

Or lets say that it was decided that medals should be handed out for certain styles of running.... Carl Lewis won medals in the 100 "freestyle." There is a great chance that he'd have won medals in the 100 "running with both hands on top of your head" and the 100 "running with both hands on your buttocks" events too ... had they been events.

So sure, by any metric, Phelps is a great swimmer - apparently the greatest ever. But his medal count is in part due to the generous recognition of swimming events that really require a very similar set of abilities.

I wish the announcers would stop using Phelps medal count as evidence that Phelps is the greatest Olympian. He's simply a great athlete who happens to compete in a sport that provides lots of medal opportunities.

Phelps swims faster than anybody else. Charles Austin jumped higher than anybody else. Carl Lewis ran faster and jumped further. Alekseyev was pretty good too.

 

[joseephuss]

I think that is a fair viewpoint. Phelps' sport does provide more opportunities to win medals. For example, a boxer is only going to be able to compete in one boxing category per Olympics. I don't think that takes away from what Phelps has accomplished and I do think he is perhaps the greatest Olympian. I just don't look at the total medal count as the reason. It is how he has gotten those medals and dominated that matters. And he is still pretty young. He could be back in 2012 if he wants.

 

[cbfan55]

Some swimmers are great at one style and suck at another, It just happens that Phelps is great at all of them

 

[Doomsday101]

Some swimmers are great at one style and suck at another, It just happens that Phelps is great at all of them

The most gold by any athlete in Olympic history with 11 time gold medals and counting.

 

[Hoov]

The most gold by any athlete in Olympic history with 11 time gold medals and counting.

And i beleive he broke the world record for each particular event so thats 5 gold medals and 5 world records thus far each event he has competed in.

 

[Danny White]

In swimming, separate swim techniques constitute separate events. Olympic swimming isn't "just swim as fast as you can for 200 meters." It is "swim as fast as you can for 200 meters with your legs and arms going in this particular way."

Fast swimmers tend to swim fast across a variety of techniques (strokes).

Because each swim technique is considered a unique event, a truly great swimmer, such as Phelps, has the opportunity to participate in (and win) many events.

There are at least five styles of high jumping (Scissors, Eastern cut-off, Western roll, Straddle technique, and Fosbury Flop). But the High Jump does not have separate events for each technique. Instead, the Olympic high jump event is about "who can clear the highest bar."

Charles Austin won the 1996 Olympic Gold medal in the high jump.

If there were separate Scissor, Eastern cut-off, Western roll, Straddle, and Fosbury Flop High Jump competitions, there is a great chance that Charles Austin would have won several more medals during the 1996 Olympics.

Or lets say that it was decided that medals should be handed out for certain styles of running.... Carl Lewis won medals in the 100 "freestyle." There is a great chance that he'd have won medals in the 100 "running with both hands on top of your head" and the 100 "running with both hands on your buttocks" events too ... had they been events.

So sure, by any metric, Phelps is a great swimmer - apparently the greatest ever. But his medal count is in part due to the generous recognition of swimming events that really require a very similar set of abilities.

I wish the announcers would stop using Phelps medal count as evidence that Phelps is the greatest Olympian. He's simply a great athlete who happens to compete in a sport that provides lots of medal opportunities.

Phelps swims faster than anybody else. Charles Austin jumped higher than anybody else. Carl Lewis ran faster and jumped further. Alekseyev was pretty good too.

This sounds like one of Andy Rooney's rants on 60 minutes.

Gymnastics has a lot of events, skiing has a lot of very similar events, track and field has a lot of events and distances, etc, where you can win multiple medals for doing basically the same thing... running fast, skiing fast, doing cartwheels and flips on or over various obstacles, etc.

Your point is well taken, but it's just how the various sports have developed. The fact that what Phelps is doing is not done regularly certainly indicates that he is something special.

I don't buy him being "the greatest athlete ever" or anything like that, but it's definitely a special thing thats happening here.

 

[Doomsday101]

And i beleive he broke the world record for each particular event so thats 5 gold medals and 5 world records thus far each event he has competed in.

You are correct he not only won the gold in 5 events thus far the world record has been broken in each of them and in some cases the record was shattered big time

 

[Doomsday101]

This sounds like one of Andy Rooney's rants on 60 minutes.

Gymnastics has a lot of events, skiing has a lot of very similar events, track and field has a lot of events and distances, etc, where you can win multiple medals for doing basically the same thing... running fast, skiing fast, doing cartwheels and flips on or over various obstacles, etc.

Your point is well taken, but it's just how the various sports have developed. The fact that what Phelps is doing is not done regularly certainly indicates that he is something special.

I don't buy him being "the greatest athlete ever" or anything like that, but it's definitely a special thing thats happening here.

I would say he is the greatest Olympian ever. The events are different not just length of the race but in some cases different swimming strokes all together.

 

[peplaw06]

Well the opposite comparison... making a parallel to swimming... would be gymnastics or diving.

How well can you perform your flips and cartwheels on the floor, on the balance beam, on the vault, rings, bars (uneven and parallel).

How well can you perform your flips and tucks from a springboard, from a platform that is 10 feet high, 20 feet high, etc.

There are only four different distances in olympic swimming (if you're talking about individual events)... 50 m, 100 m, 200 m, and 400 m. If it was just those four distances swim whatever stroke you want, then the swimming events would be over pretty quickly.

Plus it just so happens that there are four different ways to swim pretty effectively. If humans could run almost equally effectively on their hands as they could on their feet, there would probably be an event for that.

 

[Doomsday101]

Well the opposite comparison... making a parallel to swimming... would be gymnastics or diving.

How well can you perform your flips and cartwheels on the floor, on the balance beam, on the vault, rings, bars (uneven and parallel).

How well can you perform your flips and tucks from a springboard, from a platform that is 10 feet high, 20 feet high, etc.

There are only four different distances in olympic swimming (if you're talking about individual events)... 50 m, 100 m, 200 m, and 400 m. If it was just those four distances swim whatever stroke you want, then the swimming events would be over pretty quickly.

Plus it just so happens that there are four different ways to swim pretty effectively. If humans could run almost equally effectively on their hands as they could on their feet, there would probably be an event for that.

I think most of these people in the Olympics are fantastic athletes who put in hours upon hours of hard work to be as good as they are. I take nothing away from any of them. It just so happens in swimming Phelps is head and shoulders above all others and when any athlete is that dominate in his particular sport be it Jordan in Basketball or Phelps in swimming they show they are the best.

 

[ZeroClub]

The world record times of Phelps (and others) are diluted by the superfast hightech pool and the superfast hightech one-piece longsleeved catalinas that they are all wearing.

 

[Yeagermeister]

The world record times of Phelps (and others) are diluted by the superfast hightech pool and the superfast hightech one-piece longsleeved catalinas that they are all wearing.

Hightech pools? How is that possible? It's a hole filled with water.

 

[thekavorka]

Hightech pools? How is that possible? It's a hole filled with water.

They have new methods to reduce turbulence and resistance in the water.


And I agree to an extent. I don't like how they classify him as the greatest olympian of all time.

But greatest swimmer of all time? Definitely.

 

[Doomsday101]

The world record times of Phelps (and others) are diluted by the superfast hightech pool and the superfast hightech one-piece longsleeved catalinas that they are all wearing.

Oh please, I don't see the other top swimmers competeing aginst Phelps even coming close to him in many of these races. He has been head and shoulders above all others.

 

[L-O-Jete]

Try and swim in the 4 diffrent styles and you'll notice they are definitley diffrent events, you'll notice Phelps runs the medleys, relays and two styles, that is similar to track athletes running the 100, 200 and relays, but I would definitly doubt your 100m winner would absolutly win running backwards (backstroke), hopping (butterfly) and crawling (breaststroke) or a combination of these.
What Phelps is doing is very impressive.

 

[ABQCOWBOY]

Phelps is destroying the field, that's true. Having said that, there has to be something up with that pool. Phelps just broak his own world record by 1.61 seconds. That's unheard of. I'm not saying he isn't the best swimmer in the world, by a very large margin. I'm saying that there has to be something up with this pool. It's not just Phelps. All the swimmers are swimming faster times.

 

[BrAinPaiNt]

Phelps is destroying the field, that's true. Having said that, there has to be something up with that pool. Phelps just broak his own world record by 1.61 seconds. That's unheard of. I'm not saying he isn't the best swimmer in the world, by a very large margin. I'm saying that there has to be something up with this pool. It's not just Phelps. All the swimmers are swimming faster times.

What you don't see, because they won't let the cameras show it, is the commies with AK47's standing on each end of the pool.

Those Olympian swimmers are scared and just trying to get done as fast as they can so they can get the heck away from them.

 

[Doomsday101]

Phelps is destroying the field, that's true. Having said that, there has to be something up with that pool. Phelps just broak his own world record by 1.61 seconds. That's unheard of. I'm not saying he isn't the best swimmer in the world, by a very large margin. I'm saying that there has to be something up with this pool. It's not just Phelps. All the swimmers are swimming faster times.

There may be up to a point just as some track surfaces are quicker than others but no one denies the times that are posted nor the dominance he has shown against world class competition

 

[bbgun]

 

[ZeroClub]

In Olympic weight lifting, one medal is awarded based upon the athletes performance on two lifts: the Snatch and the Clean-and-Jerk (there was a third lift, the Press, but it was eliminated after the 1972 games).

If Olympic medals were awarded for each of these two (or three) lifts in addition to the all-around medal that is currently awarded, Vasiliy Alekseyev (sometimes translated to Alexeev or Alexeyev) would have tripled the number of Olympic medals that he won.

Would Alexseyev had been any "better" or more "dominant" had he collected the extra medals? Of course not. He was the greatest and most dominant lifter of his time and perhaps of all time. The absolute number of medals doesn't mean squat.

And speaking of dominance - Between 1970 and 1977, Alexseyev set 80 world records and was undefeated. Let that sink in for a moment. 80 world records. Undefeated for 8 years.

He was pretty good.

----

Teófilo Stevenson won "only" three gold medals, but he was a man among boys in the boxing ring.

----

Using Phelps medal count as evidence of his greatness over athletes of other sports is just plain silly.

Phelps is a very talented swimmer who has the good fortunate of participating in a medal rich sport at a time of technological improvements to his sport.