Jemele Hill of ESPN.com is not my favorite writer (or anyone else's), and her latest piece isn't helping. Her slobber job over the 8 golds is an affront to sports, logic, and the English language. Any lawyer who used this kind of logic in a legal brief would be disbarred on the spot. She flat out dismisses the accomplishments of MJ, Gretzky, Lance, Tiger, Carl Lewis, Jim Thorpe, Emmitt Smith, Tom Brady, and pretty much every other athlete who ever lived or will ever live in favor as inferior to what Phelps has done. I don't even mind her opinion, but the reasoning employed is just asinine. MJ is inferior because he never "pushed his body to the limit"? Gretsky's 20 million points suck because he played for 20 years? Earth to Jamele: that's still a million points a year!
She's been the worst in terms of reaction, but lots of others have chimed in calling this the greatest athletic accomplishment ever or even going so far as to call Phelps the greatest Athlete ever. The former has merit as a debatable point, the latter is just bonkers.
Without trying to take anything away from Phelps, I think we would do well to temper the hyperbole just a tad. Consider a few things:
1) Mark Spitz, the previous "most medal winning guy" in swimming, was 7 for 7 with 7 world records in 1972, and that's only because he wasn't afforded the opportunity to win an 8th. So its a little wrong to say that Phelps totally surpasses Spitz. Both maxed out the available opportunities. Who knows, maybe in 20 years the IOC will allow swimmers to swim more than 8 races, and then someone will probably surpass Phelps's total of 8. Plus Spitz did it while sporting a totally pimping mustache. Think about that: swimming is a sport where the competitors shave everything, including their freaking eyebrows sometimes, in order to reduce drag in the water, and Spitz bitch slapped all comers with a freaking pushbroom on his upper lip.
2) 3 of the 8 Golds were won as part of a relay team, and the fact that Phelps is American had as much to do with his winning those as anything. In 2 of the 3 races, the US had never lost in the Olympics. Never. Not once. Ever. Think about that, let it sink in. In the other event, the US had won all but 2 Gold Medals, and it was by the combined efforts of all four Americans, including the fastest 100 meter split in swimming history (46 seconds!) that they were able to secure that gold. Not to mention the fact that the "B" team swam the qualifying heats, saving the starters for the finals. All I'm saying is that, if everything about Phelps were the same but he happened to be Canadian, than he'd probably win those 5 individual golds and hope for another medal or two in relays. Nothing would change about Phelps or his performance, but he would have won "only" 5 golds instead of 8. Plus he'd be a dirty Canuck.
3) Phelps had basically two times as many medal opportunities as a similar track and field athlete might have had. Let me explain: Phelps is not quite a sprinter in the pool, as he did not swim either the 50 or 100 freestyle. He's not a long haul guy, as he swam over 200 meters only once. In track terms, I'd compare him to Michael Johnson, who in 1996 won the 200, 400 and 4X400 gold medals, all while setting records. The comparison is pretty close I think. The difference is that guys like Johnson have only one way to medal at any given distance: run fast. Really, really fast. By contrast, swimmers can medal multiple times for the same distance. Phelps medaled three times at 200 meters individually, and again as part of a relay. He medaled at 100 meters individually and twice as part of a relay. The point is that there's simply more chances to medal for an outstanding swimmer than there is for an outstanding track and field athlete, and certainly more than an athlete in any other Summer Sport.
So please, celebrate Michael Phelps. He's done a great thing, something for the ages. He's a shoo-in for AP Male Athlete of the Year and SI Sportsman of the year, and rightfully so. Eons from now, when aliens are digging through our ruins, I hope they find plenty of Wheaties boxes with his visage on the front, which will prove to them just how awesome humans were (especially Americans!). But praise him responsibly, and resist the urge to tear down other great athletes while doing so.
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