Michael Phelps - greatest ever?

[richkae]

Who needs a distraction?

Having the most medals doesn't make you the best athlete ever.

First, relay medals don't mean much. Any "team" that is just a collection of individual scores measures the depth of talent from that country, not the individuals.
If Phelps swam for Luxembourg, he would have zero relay medals.
At best, they are duplicates of the individual achievements.

So when you throw out the realy medals, he has 11. Still impressive, but not a way to measure greatness.

Phelps was the best short distance swimmer in the world from 2003 to 2008.
There are only two ways to measure "greatness" across sports. How long you dominate the sport, and how dominant you are ( margin of victory ).
5 years is pretty good, but other athletes have done better.
Jordan was 6 or 8 years.
Gretzky was 7 or 8 years.
Armstrong was 7 years.

Fight!

[doug]

Basically agree, but I don't think it's anything controversial. Whenever you say an absolute like "greatest ever" it necessarily comes with one or more qualifiers. One could argue different sports require a different level (or a different type) of athleticism. To say someone is the greatest Olympic athlete ever has as much to do with timing and luck as anything else. Given the variety of Olympic sports, making the criterion total lifetime medals I suppose is reasonable, since winning a medal is the goal. One might say swimming is at an unfair advantage given the number of events that sport has.

[Doug_G]

My Roadster is way greater than my iPhone.

That's the kind of comparison we're talking about here. Apples and Teslas.

[Robert.Boston]

Saying "Michael Phelps is the greatest Olympian" is akin to saying "Model S is the best production car". Truth is in the eye of the beholder.

And I hate his goatee. He's looking Vulcan.

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

I'd likely not put a swimmer in there. Top freestyle swimmers win multiple events.

I'd go for Michael Johnson over Phelps. He absolutely destroyed the 200m and 400m records.
Now of course there's Usain Bolt who has similarly destroyed 100m and 200m records.

From a biased British perspective I'd go for (Sir) Steve Redgrave, because he won with different partners and because rowers always look like they've earned their success.

[dsm363]

Athletes and sports change over the decades. Science and knowledge about nutrition, exercise and training is much better now than many decades ago. That's why I don't think you can really compare teams or individual athletes across many generations. It's better to compare them within the generation they competed in. With that, Phelps probably is one of the greatest olympic champions of his generation.

[brianman]

Looking back on the medals... Lezak's contribution on the Beijing relay is still the winner in my book.
Beijing: Lezak, U.S. Make History In 4x100m Freestyle - Swimming Video | NBC Olympics

As for "relays don't count", tell that to the countries that set fire to cars and buildings when their team wins/loses the World Cup, Super Bowl, NBA Championship, etc. Team sports count.

[richkae]

Looking back on the medals... Lezak's contribution on the Beijing relay is still the winner in my book.
Beijing: Lezak, U.S. Make History In 4x100m Freestyle - Swimming Video | NBC Olympics

As for "relays don't count", tell that to the countries that set fire to cars and buildings when their team wins/loses the World Cup, Super Bowl, NBA Championship, etc. Team sports count.

What I said was that the relays dont count when measuring an individual athlete against his peers.
If swimmer A had 8 individual medals and swimmer B had 0 individual medals but 16 relay medals - does that mean swimmer B is better than swimmer A? No, it means that swimmer Bs "team" was better than swimmer A.
But even using "team" for a relay is a stretch, its just 4 individual performances strung together.
Winning at a relay doesn't mean you have a good team, it means you have 4 individuals whose times add together to be the fastest. It is nothing in your control, its all about the talent pool in your country.

Of course when your team wins at a real team sport ( like football ) it means you have the best team - but that is the difference with a real team sport - it could be made up of players that by strict individual measures are inferior to the players on a team that they beat.

Winning at a real team sport is a factor in measuring the individuals who play that sport, but it is much more complicated. In a real team sport, the best player - the one who contributes the most to the teams victory - may not be obvious from a scoreboard.

[doug]

Well apparently those that follow these things also look separately at individual and team events. From Wikipedia, which I assume is up to the minute accurate:

Michael Fred Phelps II (born June 30, 1985) is an American swimmer and the most decorated Olympian of all time with 20 medals. Phelps also holds the all-time records for gold medals (16), gold medals in individual events (10), Olympic medals in individual events for a male (12, tied), and gold medals in the same individual event at consecutive Olympics for a male swimmer (3). In winning eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, Phelps took the record for the most first-place finishes at any single Olympic Games. Five of those victories were in individual events, tying the single Games record. In the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Phelps has won two silver medals and two golds through August 2.

I believe today he has the opportunity to win two more. So individually, he's also doing quite well.

[brianman]

But even using "team" for a relay is a stretch, its just 4 individual performances strung together.

We'll just have to disagree on this one. Because we clearly see things differently.

Watch that video I linked and tell me Lezak doesn't deserve to have his medal "count" because "relays don't matter."