Greather Athlete: Phelps or Bolt

[a8bil]

As a former D1 swimmer (okay, not a very good one), I would have to say Bolt. There is some truth to the notion that certain events in swimming are so close in movement (butterfly and freestyle) that those who are great in one are usually great in the other, and often they are great at closely related distances (i.e. 100 and 200). Examples abound. Mark Spitz in the 70s. Matt Biondi in the 80's and early 90s. Phelps in the oughts and teens. Each of them had huge medal counts, and Spitz and Biondi may have had many more if they could have made a living while swimming, as Phelps has been able to do. Spitz and Biondi were true amateurs who had to move on from swimming and actually have careers where they could make money. But to be clear, they were dominant in the sport during their times.

Phelps was certainly amazing...and clearly the best overall swimmer to date, but in my view, what made Phelps so great was the breadth and duration of his career, not necessarily how great he was in any given event. Sure, Phelps broke many individual world records (including his own) throughout his career, but they were largely incremental improvements that have steadily fallen to faster swimmers. Only his 400 IM record stands (which is a great record BTW).

Bolt, by contrast holds the world records in both of his events, and Bolt is recognized not only for consistently winning on the big stage (like Phelps), but what really stands out is how he blew away the records and very few have come close to him since. Remember how steroid addled Ben Johnson blew away the field in Seoul? 9.79 secs. Usain = 9.58. Bolt's records feel a bit like Bob Beamon's 68 long jump record...just a supernatural feat that will require a harmonic convergence to repeat. Just one man's opinion.

[Frank Dux]

It's Bolt easily. He might be the biggest outlier in sports history.

elite runners come from poor families in inner-cities, third world countries, as well as wealthy, and middle class families. All it takes is guts, genetics, and hard work. Swimming? It's a far more privileged sport. Most of the world doesn't have access to olympic sized swimming pools, or even anything remotely adequate, let alone a coach, a team, training, etc.

[DCasey91]

Man a lot of y'all really don't know a thing about sports and athletics, let alone basketball.

This is Phelps, with all due respect to Bolt.

Exactly. Spend ten minutes of swimming in a pool, everyone will see how hard it is. Add to the fact he dominated all the strokes.

Bolt did sprinting. Phelps did the full gambit.

There’s a good reason there isn’t a 800m breast/butterfly event. Lol if you can do either or easy for 800m (16 full size laps) your an effn stud muffin girl or guy.

Someone compared Golf to swimming that was all that was needed to get a jist of how ignorant some posters are.

Zero John Daly’s in the pool let me tell you that much lol.

[DCasey91]

Running is such a natural task. To see a human running that fast and pounds his chest before the finish line is mind-blowing.

Bolt isn’t running

The competition and talent thing is a none argument.

It’s five give or take that’s it for both. In the whole wide world. That’s not a competition that’s a group of very rare freak world class athletes.

They both race against the clock. That’s their true competition.

Phelps achievements and feats harder then Bolt’s pretty simple to understand.

[a8bil]

Running is such a natural task. To see a human running that fast and pounds his chest before the finish line is mind-blowing.

Bolt isn’t running

The competition and talent thing is a none argument.

It’s five give or take that’s it for both. In the whole wide world. That’s not a competition that’s a group of very rare freak world class athletes.

They both race against the clock. That’s their true competition.

Phelps achievements and feats harder then Bolt’s pretty simple to understand.

Read my post. I swam. I swam against world record holders. You don't understand swimming. Yeah, its difficult for those who don't swim, but for those who do, it aint. As fundraisers we would sometimes swim miles...it was not difficult...in fact, it was just like practice, where we would swim for 3 hours at a time, usually twice daily.

Mark Spitz was the Phelps of the 70's. Matt Biondi was the Phelps of the 80s-90s. They dominated in butterfly and freestyle, just like Phelps, and each scored 11 olympic medals, including medals in relays, because they were top 4 in their events and made the relay teams, just like Phelps. Were they able to swim professionally, I have no doubt they would have won many more medals. As much as PHelps? Perhaps not. But they would have continued their dominance.

[DCasey91]

Anyone bringing down Phelps achievements stating he had many other events to win doesn’t know squat about why Phelps had the way harder task at hand.

That actually brings him up a whole other level and then some when comparing the two.

Phelps did a Carl Lewis if you want a comparison.

Swimming harder then sprinting let’s not kid ourselves here. Sprinters have off-seasons, and shorter primes.

Butterfly/Breaststroke/Backstroke/Freestyle

Freestyle isn’t close to the hardest one.

You don’t see a 800m Breast/Butterfly olympic event. That’s basically dying lol

To be world class in one of those strokes is rare and hard enough as it is that already makes a world class athlete whichever type you’re focused on.. to be world class in all of them is absurd.

I suspect Bolt never felt like dying. World class swimmers just get used to that.

Phelps when into deeper waters of what a human stamina/endurance is capable of which is more impressive to me.

Phelps literally is a country medal winner by himself.

To get a glimpse of how insane a swimmer is and how hard they train. Your US national hero Coughlin from memory did the NAVY SEAL test on YouTube like she was doing a warmup. Took the piss out of it literally.

[boogiezen]

Phelps.

Are you all serious? NOT ALL can swim!

[PistolPeteJR]

Always a strong argument to lead with “if your opinion differs from mine, you don’t know damned thing about X topic”.

Except this is page 5, and there's been plenty of strong and logical argumentation for what I'm saying. Feel free to scroll through and read.

I have read. And there’s plenty of argument the other way too. The numbers do not lie. The level of dominance Bolt achieved in sprinting is completely unprecedented. It’s been over a decade and nobody has come even close to his time.

Athleticism and dominance in one’s sport are not one and the same.

[robbie84]

Phelps.

Are you all serious? NOT ALL can swim!

huh? lol

[Dr Positivity]

I hadn't paid attention to the results the last 5 years and just assumed Ledecky was a freak like these guys after last time, but it looks like she's just a distance specialist now, Titmus is working her and she didn't even medal in 200m. Still a great career but nothing close to Phelps.

[robbie84]

Also, haven't all of Phelp's world records been beaten already?

[a8bil]

Also, haven't all of Phelp's world records been beaten already?

He still has one individual record -- 400 IM. He has relay records, but that is a function of 4 swimmers together being the best of all time.

[a8bil]

Running is such a natural task. To see a human running that fast and pounds his chest before the finish line is mind-blowing.

Bolt isn’t running

The competition and talent thing is a none argument.

It’s five give or take that’s it for both. In the whole wide world. That’s not a competition that’s a group of very rare freak world class athletes.

They both race against the clock. That’s their true competition.

Phelps achievements and feats harder then Bolt’s pretty simple to understand.

The one thing Phelps did during his reign that was truly impressive was that he sometimes swam races within less than a half hour of his last race and still won. That takes amazing recovery to dispel that much lactic acid from the muscle to be able to perform at peak so quickly.

[McBubbles]

Relative to their sport, Phelps is better. As athletic specimens Bolt is better.

[Hero]

Yeah but also relative to the sport is that way more people have access to Athletics vs Swimming. It's not even close.