Posted By:
JoannI think what Phelps did was awesome, but I don't think you can call him the greatest athlete or even the greatest Olympian ever. The Olympics, by their very nature as a competition of very diverse sports, somewhat defy naming anyone 'best ever'.
Phelps competed in an area where there are lots of different versions of the event and therefore lots of medals given out. How can we call anyone best based purely on medal count? Other athletes may have dominated their sports too, but could only win one medal per Olympic games because that's all that was reasonably offered.
Take Teofilo Stevenson (sp?) the heavyweight boxer from Cuba - still to me maybe the best athlete I've ever seen in my lifetime. Three gold medals or something like that in the Olympic heavyweight category. If boxing was a sport where there were many competitions for the variations on the theme, he could easily have won more. As it was he had to wait 4 years between chances and still won 3.
I saw on one of the early TV shows about this Oly that China was bound and determined to win the medal count this time - the great victory in Beijing. So they looked at the competition and started heavy developmental efforts in those sports that give out lots of medals. For exactly that reason - it's "easier" for lack of a better word, to win medals in some areas. So they hit track and field, swimming and gymnastics particularly hard. Baseball? Heck no. Why? So they can spend all that time and money for a shot at one medal for the whole competition?
So ... hard for me to buy anyone as greatest Olympian, and certainly not based on medal count alone. Great Olympian - of course. Greatest? Mmmm not so fast.
J