London 2012: Swimming medal inflation? Not so fast. - Joe Chacon's Blog

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Joe Chacon's Blog

London 2012: Swimming medal inflation? Not so fast. Stuck

Posted on August 6, 2012 at 11:55 AM.

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Michael Phelps ended his Olympic career by helping Team USA to a gold medal in the 4x100-medley meter relay this past Saturday night. The gold medal was Phelps' 22nd Olympic medal. 18 of those medals earned were gold.

There always seems to be somebody to come out of the woodwork to dispel a great accomplishment and this situation is no different.

Cyd Zeigler, co-founder of outsports.com, published this article on SBNation.com stating Phelps' medal accomplishment was not much of a feat. In fact, Zeigler believes a fencer from Italy has more impressive accomplishments than Phelps.

I'm not saying the fencer (her name is Valentina Vezzali) is any more or less talented than Phelps, but to devalue what Phelps has accomplished is such a reach.

The premise for Zeigler's article is that the only reason Phelps has so many Olympic medals is because of how many swimming events award medals. He doesn't believe there should be a medal for each type of stroke (i.e.; backstroke, butterfly, etc.).

Ziegler goes on to suggest that perhaps track and field should introduce more events to keep up with the number of medals awarded in swimming:

Quote:


	"We'd have the 100-meter "skip," where athletes have to skip down the track as fast as possible. The 400-meter "backwards run" would be a crowd favorite, as athletes put their quads - and spatial awareness - to the test, running backwards around the track. My personal choice would be the 200-meter "cartwheel," where athletes would have to do cartwheels all the way around until they crossed the finish line."

I believe even the ****** swimming fan who only watches the sport every four years can understand how different each swim is. Ziegler says he understands it, yet he doesn't understand why there is a medal for each individual swimming event.

You can relate the difference in swimming events to other sports. Somebody who is great in the freestyle swim isn't neccesarily as good in the backstroke. Just like in track and field; a great 100M sprinter isn't necessarily great at the 100M hurdles. To insinuate that each swimming style should not have its own medal awarded to it is simply foolish.

Is Michael Phelps the greatest Olympian? I don't know, who's to say really? It's just like debating who's the greatest football, basketball, or baseball player of all time. Everyone has their own criteria on how they determine the greatest athlete in a particular sport or competition, it's a highly subjective process.

Ziegler made an attempt to go against the grain for shock value and made some humorous examples in his article. I don't believe, however, that many people share his viewpoint that Phelps' medal count isn't much of an accomplishment.

What do you think, OS Community? Does Ziegler bring up a good point or do his comments about Phelps and swimming come off as immature and naive?

Joe Chacon is a Staff Writer for Operation Sports and a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @JoeChacon.

Comments

# 1 riichiieriich @ Aug 6

Not the greatest Olympian, because there's a lot of different events and swimming is most certainly not the most difficult or challenging. Definitely the greatest swimmer though.

# 2 swaldo @ Aug 6

Way too much swimming being shown on TV. All I can see is people flopping around in the water trying to beat each other by 1/100 of a second. Thanks to Phelps we get 24 hour coverage of this stuff. But he's cool, he said he's retiring to a life of travel and videogames LOL.

# 3 N51_rob @ Aug 6

It's not like Phelps begged for all these events, and I'm sorry but there is a reason that there are so many swimming events. Being good at the back stroke doens't mean you are good at the breast stroke.

I would love to see what this writer looks like, and what athletic events he "excels" at. If there was more than one way to run, then I would be all for more events. Fact is there is only one way to run, while there are many ways to swim.

Phleps isn't the greatest Olympian because in 2008/2009 it was the suits breaking records not the swimmers. IMO.

# 4 ajaxab @ Aug 6

The more persuasive argument, for me, relates to age. We'll never know if Phelps was the greatest Olympian or if someone else could have been. The four year gap between each Olympics means that you have to be the right age to have a chance to do what Phelps has done. If his first chance at an Olympics was when he was 13 or 17 instead of 15, his last Olympics subsequently likely comes at 25 or 29. If his last Olympics is at 25, then he would participate 3 times. If his last Olympics is at 29, then he would still get that shot at a 4th Olympics like he has now. But at 29, it would seem that much more difficult to compete at a high level than at 27.

So Phelps may be the best Olympian in being born at just the right time. But we may never know if someone born at the wrong time might have done just as well as Phelps did. It's a problem unique to the Olympics and its four year gaps.

# 5 BreaksoftheGame @ Aug 6

When they say he is the greatest Olympian ever.....I think it is right to question whether he had more opportunities to win medals than other athletes.

# 6 jWILL253 @ Aug 6

Quote:


	Not the greatest Olympian, because there's a lot of different events and swimming is most certainly not the most difficult or challenging. Definitely the greatest swimmer though.

Quote:


	Way too much swimming being shown on TV. All I can see is people flopping around in the water trying to beat each other by 1/100 of a second.

Didn't know you two are such experts on the sport of swimming! *END SARCASM HERE*

# 7 pjburrage @ Aug 7

Really need to distinguish the difference between most decorated Olympian (which Phelps certainly is) and Greatest Olympian (which will be down to preference and nationality - Jesse Owens, Carl Lewis, Michael Phelps, Sir Steve Redgrave, Sir Chris Hoy).

Certainly a benefit that Phelps has multiple events that he can win at each Olympics, but that doesn't take away his achievement. If for example Usain Bolt did the 100m, 200m, 400m, and the two Relays, he could conceivably win 5 Golds each Olympics.

# 8 olderspice @ Aug 9

I believe the quintessence of the argument has been lost to bad wording. I believe the intention of the original argument is to not to devalue Phelps or swimming, but to address the unbalanced medal count between sports. Swimming offers 30+ gold medals, while events like soccer and basketball offer only 2. Freestyle swimming is definitely not the same as butterfly, but there is a lot more similarity between the two than soccer has to basketball. The difference in stroke type do count.

But I don't believe that the difference in race length is significant enough to count those as distinctive medaling events. Someone who is accomplished in the 100 meter freestyle is probably accomplished in the 4x100 meter freestyle and the 400 meter freestyle. A swimmer who wants to up his medal count can simply start practising different race lengths (Instead of swimming one lap fast, I'll try to swim two laps fast) while a basketball player who wants to up his medal count would have to start an entirely new sports. While there is a difference between some events in swimming, in a lot of cases, that difference is less than marginal.

Based on the logistics of the olympic games, a swimmer has an easier chance of winning a ton of gold medals simply because swimming offers more gold medals. I do not believe that any one sports is more significant than any other, but the way the medals are distributed says otherwise. In my ideal Olympics, every individual distinctive sport, be it soccer or gymnastics or shooting or swimming, should all offer the same number of medals.