Phelps or Bolt?
Quick correction to the Fantasy Football preview. McGahee may possibly be back by Week 1 and would be the starter. However, Ray Rice has looked great in preseason. Be wary, even if he makes Week 1 or 2.
More importantly, congratulations to Jason Rogers and the rest of the silver medal winners in the team competition!
On to the column:
Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt? Who's the better athlete?
Sounds like an easy question right? Phelps all the way right? Well imagine you're in Jamaica where a bobsled team can turn itself into a movie. You think they're going a little bit nuts right now? You think their media has given Phelps as much coverage and coverage as gleaming as for Bolt? Let's just say that cricket scores are higher up on the newspaper page than their declining economy. So what if you lived in Jamaica, who's the better champion? People have been nominating Phelps as the greatest athlete of all time. I'm not even sure he's the greatest athlete of the 2008 Olympics. Before we get any further, I just want to say that the highlight of my Olympic watching experience thus far was the 4x100m free and a close second was the 100m butterfly. I watched the butterfly at a bar with everyone going nuts and chanting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"
Moving on, I read a sportswriter who wondered how many golds Carl Lewis would have won if you ran the 100m and 200m forwards, backwards, and sideways, then had relays for all of them. I don't purport to be a swimming expert but I have a pool and swimming the butterfly versus the free seems a lot closer than say the 100m vs. the 110m hurdles, or the long jump or the 1500m. Completely different animals. Phelps has far more opportunities to win races than Bolt does.
Next, Phelps got 3 gold medals as part of a relay team. And I think everybody can tell you that the 4x100m freestyle was an absolute gift. If Jason Lezak (Jewish by the way, woo hoo!) doesn't turn in the last 25m of his life, Phelps walks away with 7 golds and 6 world records. Not a $100 million man. Phelps is entirely reliant on his cohorts to come through. He didn't even win his own leg in the 4x100m free. We could even put Kosuke Kitajima in here for his sheer dominance in the breast stroke. He had Japan ahead in the 4x100m medley because he is so ridiculously better than everyone else in the world at his sport. I don't think we can call all of Phelps' victories dominant. 0.01 of a second is something I think everybody understands now. I'm guessing you're picturing that underwater frame by frame picture that they kept showing. Although, this is the Beijing Olympics. It was probably all CGI anyway. The Chinese government will probably arrest Michael Phelps as a dissident and we'll never see him again. That or the French have already taken some blood from a goat and are trying to pass it off as Phelps' in order to prove he's doping. I'm not sure which will happen first.
Back to the argument though, Phelps hasn't been dominant in every race. I understand that he put his body through the wringer and that therein lies a lot of what is impressive in his feat. The mental and physical wear must have been tremendous. But we're talking about someone who some want to call the best Olympian and athlete of all time. No excuses. Would the best Olympian of all time have almost lost in his best stroke? Not only that, but he didn't exactly blow them away in the 200m butterfly either. I understand that his goggles were filling up but he's all over the place anyway, so oh well. Usain Bolt is running through the smog that our TV doesn't see. Ok, that's not a good argument. But have you seen the way that Bolt wins his races? It's unreal. And don't get me started on his "unsportsmanlike" actions. What's more unsportsmanlike, pounding one's chest before the race is over with all of that adrenaline going and all of those people watching, or posing with your eyes squinted to imitate the Chinese, or saying something like, "we're going to smash them" before the race even happens. I love Bolt's animated personality. He's having fun out there and I'm having fun watching. He's become must watch TV due to the Howard Stern theory. If you love him, you want to see what he's going to do next. If you think his "antics" are deplorable, you're watching to see what he's going to do next. It's great.
The crux of the matter lies here; Michael Phelps has broken a record that stood for decades. He's done something that has never been done before as my friend D.J. said earlier. Well you know what, there are a lot of things that have never been done before. That doesn't make you the better athlete. What if you won the rhythmic gymnastics competitions with the ball, the ribbon, and whatever else they use and you were the first? I think you see where I'm going with this. What Michael Phelps did accomplish, was being the first guy to win the medals in a competition where they used those new Superman swimsuits that led to pretty much every world record falling. Would they have fallen if not for the new swimsuits? Who knows? Spitz broke all those world records without the use of some new technology. Unless you count whatever he was doing with his hair as technology. Why did they even have that green line this year in the races? Didn't half of the teams in the 4x100m free break the world record? Phelps' accomplishments are amazing, but I think people are losing perspective because NBC wants to sell those DVD's. Just watch the other sprinters' reactions to what Bolt is doing. They are in awe. Tyson Gay, after he lost mind you, was asked about his injury and all he really wanted to talk about was Bolt's performance and the math calculations to determine how fast Bolt can actually go. 9.69 was just amazing, and he slowed up.
Let's get right down to it. An athlete is defined as, "a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength." Well that settles that, right? We're still talking apples and oranges. I know I didn't make Bolt's case that much and this seemed more like an anti-Phelps article but I just wanted to give you the devil's advocate because I know I'm alone in considering Bolt the better athlete. Here's what it comes down to for me, who's the better athlete, the dolphin or the cheetah?
Final note: The next article will be a mailbag. If you want to submit a question for use, please email me at Eric.Rudin@gmail.com. Thanks.
More importantly, congratulations to Jason Rogers and the rest of the silver medal winners in the team competition!
On to the column:
Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt? Who's the better athlete?
Sounds like an easy question right? Phelps all the way right? Well imagine you're in Jamaica where a bobsled team can turn itself into a movie. You think they're going a little bit nuts right now? You think their media has given Phelps as much coverage and coverage as gleaming as for Bolt? Let's just say that cricket scores are higher up on the newspaper page than their declining economy. So what if you lived in Jamaica, who's the better champion? People have been nominating Phelps as the greatest athlete of all time. I'm not even sure he's the greatest athlete of the 2008 Olympics. Before we get any further, I just want to say that the highlight of my Olympic watching experience thus far was the 4x100m free and a close second was the 100m butterfly. I watched the butterfly at a bar with everyone going nuts and chanting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"
Moving on, I read a sportswriter who wondered how many golds Carl Lewis would have won if you ran the 100m and 200m forwards, backwards, and sideways, then had relays for all of them. I don't purport to be a swimming expert but I have a pool and swimming the butterfly versus the free seems a lot closer than say the 100m vs. the 110m hurdles, or the long jump or the 1500m. Completely different animals. Phelps has far more opportunities to win races than Bolt does.
Next, Phelps got 3 gold medals as part of a relay team. And I think everybody can tell you that the 4x100m freestyle was an absolute gift. If Jason Lezak (Jewish by the way, woo hoo!) doesn't turn in the last 25m of his life, Phelps walks away with 7 golds and 6 world records. Not a $100 million man. Phelps is entirely reliant on his cohorts to come through. He didn't even win his own leg in the 4x100m free. We could even put Kosuke Kitajima in here for his sheer dominance in the breast stroke. He had Japan ahead in the 4x100m medley because he is so ridiculously better than everyone else in the world at his sport. I don't think we can call all of Phelps' victories dominant. 0.01 of a second is something I think everybody understands now. I'm guessing you're picturing that underwater frame by frame picture that they kept showing. Although, this is the Beijing Olympics. It was probably all CGI anyway. The Chinese government will probably arrest Michael Phelps as a dissident and we'll never see him again. That or the French have already taken some blood from a goat and are trying to pass it off as Phelps' in order to prove he's doping. I'm not sure which will happen first.
Back to the argument though, Phelps hasn't been dominant in every race. I understand that he put his body through the wringer and that therein lies a lot of what is impressive in his feat. The mental and physical wear must have been tremendous. But we're talking about someone who some want to call the best Olympian and athlete of all time. No excuses. Would the best Olympian of all time have almost lost in his best stroke? Not only that, but he didn't exactly blow them away in the 200m butterfly either. I understand that his goggles were filling up but he's all over the place anyway, so oh well. Usain Bolt is running through the smog that our TV doesn't see. Ok, that's not a good argument. But have you seen the way that Bolt wins his races? It's unreal. And don't get me started on his "unsportsmanlike" actions. What's more unsportsmanlike, pounding one's chest before the race is over with all of that adrenaline going and all of those people watching, or posing with your eyes squinted to imitate the Chinese, or saying something like, "we're going to smash them" before the race even happens. I love Bolt's animated personality. He's having fun out there and I'm having fun watching. He's become must watch TV due to the Howard Stern theory. If you love him, you want to see what he's going to do next. If you think his "antics" are deplorable, you're watching to see what he's going to do next. It's great.
The crux of the matter lies here; Michael Phelps has broken a record that stood for decades. He's done something that has never been done before as my friend D.J. said earlier. Well you know what, there are a lot of things that have never been done before. That doesn't make you the better athlete. What if you won the rhythmic gymnastics competitions with the ball, the ribbon, and whatever else they use and you were the first? I think you see where I'm going with this. What Michael Phelps did accomplish, was being the first guy to win the medals in a competition where they used those new Superman swimsuits that led to pretty much every world record falling. Would they have fallen if not for the new swimsuits? Who knows? Spitz broke all those world records without the use of some new technology. Unless you count whatever he was doing with his hair as technology. Why did they even have that green line this year in the races? Didn't half of the teams in the 4x100m free break the world record? Phelps' accomplishments are amazing, but I think people are losing perspective because NBC wants to sell those DVD's. Just watch the other sprinters' reactions to what Bolt is doing. They are in awe. Tyson Gay, after he lost mind you, was asked about his injury and all he really wanted to talk about was Bolt's performance and the math calculations to determine how fast Bolt can actually go. 9.69 was just amazing, and he slowed up.
Let's get right down to it. An athlete is defined as, "a person trained or gifted in exercises or contests involving physical agility, stamina, or strength." Well that settles that, right? We're still talking apples and oranges. I know I didn't make Bolt's case that much and this seemed more like an anti-Phelps article but I just wanted to give you the devil's advocate because I know I'm alone in considering Bolt the better athlete. Here's what it comes down to for me, who's the better athlete, the dolphin or the cheetah?
Final note: The next article will be a mailbag. If you want to submit a question for use, please email me at Eric.Rudin@gmail.com. Thanks.
I have to say, the smog arguement is valid. I was living in Beijing at this time last year and can personally atest to the effect it has on your respiratory system. Also, I believe that the CDC recommends that you not run outside in Beijing. I know it was recommended to me by a number of health professionals.
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