Off Topic Thread 3.0

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Ian Thorpe?

It's obviously easier to be competitive in multiple swimming events than it is in any other sport. It's not really in question.

All Ian Thorpe's Olympic medals, bar one, were in freestyle. Take out the relays and he's got 2 individual Olympic Golds. Nowhere near the same.

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Thorpe has 5 Golds. Not even close. Matt Biondi and Mark Spitz are two of the greatest ever and they only got 8 or 9 golds each.

Yeah, I know "only"

Ryan Lochte is actually the most decorated male Olympic swimmer after Phelps. He's got 12 in total, so far, 6 of them gold. He passed Spitz last night, who has 11 in total, 9 of them gold.

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I'm not sure if that's an intentional attempt to be silly?

If you look at athletes since the 80s, there are 9 swimmers with over 10 medals. There are only 2 non-swimmers (Birgit Fischer and Carl Lewis). I think that says a lot.

What's silly about it?

Why can't you run 400 if you can run 200?

Swimming back or butterfly is completely different from swimming free. Running 400m is just running a bit further.

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Swimmers are massively more likely to be successful in multiple disciplines, looking at the record books.

Do you think it's because swimmers are all superior athletes to everyone else involved in the Olympics, or is it more likely that the sport lends itself to multi-disciplined athletes?

I don't think they're superior athletes, necessarily, I just don't agree with the mentality that everyone could have as many medals if they could compete in as many events.

Maybe you could argue that on a one games basis, but to win that many over a period of 4 or 5 games is something special. Look at Missy Franklin, won 5 medals in London but only qualified for 2 individual events in Rio and didn't make it to final in the one that's already taken place.

There are some sports where athletes have the opportunity to compete in multiple events if they wanted but they're not going to be winning them all the time.

Someone said to me yesterday "Serena Williams could have as many medals as Phelps if she was awarded a medal for every aspect of her game, gold for serve, gold for backhand...."

First of all that's a stupid comparison. You'd have to be awarding swimming medals for starts, turns, underwater kicks etc. for that to be an accurate comparison. However, Serena's first Olympics was in 2000, you can compete in 3 tennis events at the Olympics, that's a possible 15 medals she could have by now. Even someone as dominant in their sport as her hasn't done that.

My point is that it's unfair to dismiss Phelps' accomplishments in that way. He's defended multiple Olympic titles multiple times. Nobody has achieved what he has before and I doubt very much anyone will for quite some time, if ever. To make it sound like they're just throwing medals at swimmers is very unfair.

Yeah_Right wrote: »

What about gymnastics? They could get a medal in each apparatus plus the team event. They are basically doing the same thing with slight variations.

Simone Biles could walk away with 5 medals this year, and she probably will. She's 19 though, and the American standard is so ridiculously high above the rest of the world that there's no guarantee she'll make it back for Tokyo. So it's unlikely she'll be scooping 5 medals at multiple Olympics.

Which is exactly my point. On a Games by Games basis there are a few events where people could win multiple medals. To do it repeatedly over the course of 12 years, in Phelps' case, is phenomenal.

TICKLE_ME_ELMO wrote: »

It is pretty amazing.

I keep seeing people trying to dismiss it by saying oh, we could all have that many medals if we were allowed compete in 100 events every Olympics.

He's not just swimming the same event over and over, there's different distances and different strokes. What he does would be like Usain Bolt competing in the 100m, 400m, 100m hurdles, 400 hurdles, 4x100 and 4x200 relays. Any track athlete could compete in all those events if they ran the qualifying times in trials, point is none of them do, none of them even try.

It would be more like Bolt competing in the running backwards race, the waving your arms like a helicopter race and the skipping race. The number of pointless swimming races is a joke. But others think different, so... Different strokes for different folks, I guess.