Phelps or Bolt

[tracey_nice]

Anyone have the link for the 4x100 mens relay???

You can try here.
Just click the second square, the one above which it says "VIDEO: JAMAJČANI RAZRED ZASE". For HQ video you have to click below the picture, where it says "Kvaliteta: visoka".

It wouldnt work for me?!?!

[Doctor MJ]

Doctor MJ, I would guess Phelps has that record, primarily because I doubt many athletes have ever competed in 8 events in a single year.

Golf is a sport that is more skill based than physical/athletic based. Basketball, Soccer, Baseball, etc. are also all sports that have a larger majority about skill than athletic ability.

However, a sport like track or swimming, is primarily all about physical capabilities. It doesn't matter about how skilled you are at running, the main determinant of your speed will be your athleticism. Form, pacing, technique does eventually come into play, but those are for primarily subtracting thousand's of a second off of your overall time.

Thanks for the response, but I asked about track athletes because I'm trying to triangulate how impressive Bolt's performance is. A quick says that over the past 4 Olympics, the number of world records set by Bolt equals the number of world records set by all other men combined. I see also that Carl Lewis didn't break any world records in 1984 other than his relay. Basically what it all adds up to: Short of me having a significant boost in opinion on Phelps, I'm more impressed with Bolt in these Olympics than Phelps. Bolt is just too good.

(I will just be a little petulant though and maintain it was unreasonable to rate Bolt over Phelps simply based on his performance on the 100. Had Bolt then gone and missed medals in his other two races there wouldn't be a rational soul around who'd think that overall he'd been more impressive than Phelps. But of course, it's August 23rd, and we know that didn't happen)

Your points about skill vs talent echo my thinking as well, though I don't quite agree on the sports you mention, and I think phrasing it in terms of physicality can be misleading. Every sport requires some combo of the two. Sports like golf and tennis are on the extreme skill end. They require incredible mental toughness, and forget about being the best in the world if you weren't playing them as a kid. I often refer to basketball on the other end of the spectrum because a supreme talent can pick up a ball at 18 and still make millions. A sprinting competition like the 100m is probably even more talent base. You really don't need to have much upstairs to run in a straight line (run Forrest run). Swimming on the other I'm guessing is more skill based than basketball, but still more on the talent side than the skill side.

[GQStylin]

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Yes, you just rephrased exactly what I took issue with. Let me try to be more clear and see if we can come together here: In terms classic athleticism (strength, speed, etc), Tiger is much less impressive than Bolt or Phelps. In terms of how extraordinary Tiger's talent is relative to humanity, regardless of in what category you classify Tiger's talent, he's right up there with on the shortlist of sporting greats. Can we agree on that?

I can agree that Tiger's talent is quite awesome and its rare. Does he rank with the sporting greats? I'd say yes. But is he the greatest of the greats? I'll say no because of the sport he's in. On the one hand I do recognize his talent, but the fact that he plays golf which is mostly skill and luck rather than blood, sweat and tears, I'd put him below any great athlete that's in a sport that requires you to work hard physically.

Tiger may be the most famous 'athlete', but he's definitely not the greatest of the sporting greats.

[tracey_nice]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zzSpPaCIG0g
This is how good Bolt is...

[Blame Rasho]

You can tear an ACL walking up stairs hard... so don't sell me that golf is a physical sport. It isn't.

So by your definition, the pinnacle of physical accomplishment is pitching a baseball. There is no act in sports in America that creates as many major injuries as pitching a baseball.

Boxing/MMA bitach....

In my opinion there is nothing greater than standing toe to toe with someone and then physically beating them into submission.

Don't sell me otherwise...

[LLJ]

[)

Your points about skill vs talent echo my thinking as well, though I don't quite agree on the sports you mention, and I think phrasing it in terms of physicality can be misleading. Every sport requires some combo of the two. Sports like golf and tennis are on the extreme skill end. They require incredible mental toughness, and forget about being the best in the world if you weren't playing them as a kid. I often refer to basketball on the other end of the spectrum because a supreme talent can pick up a ball at 18 and still make millions. A sprinting competition like the 100m is probably even more talent base. You really don't need to have much upstairs to run in a straight line (run Forrest run). Swimming on the other I'm guessing is more skill based than basketball, but still more on the talent side than the skill side.

Yeah. When you watch Phelps, he excels most in straight up power swimming. When he does the more technique oriented swims, like butterfly or breaststroke, he's a little weaker. Of course, his tremendous motor and power allow him to still excel in such swims, but he's less polished and therefore more vulnerable. He knows it too, that's why he really picked only one event where he had to butterfly from beginning to end, and the butterfly is still something that power and physique is more of an advantage in than breaststroke, which is more patience and technique based.

I think a Decathlon athlete is the most underhyped athlete of the Olympics. They test skill, stamina and mental toughness like few other events, with Triathlon coming in second, lagging behind in the skill test but maybe stronger in the stamina test. So Bryan Clay is, by this category, the most impressive athlete of the Olympics.

[BlackMamba]

i was impressed by phelps accomplishments, but i was blown away by bolt's dominance, his races were never close and pehlps also lost 2.

i think both will be the stars of beijing 2008 and both should receive the same amount of praise.

[Doctor MJ]

I think a Decathlon athlete is the most underhyped athlete of the Olympics. They test skill, stamina and mental toughness like few other events, with Triathlon coming in second, lagging behind in the skill test but maybe stronger in the stamina test. So Bryan Clay is, by this category, the most impressive athlete of the Olympics.

Evaluating something like decathlon really brings a key point into perspective: Part of how impressive an athlete is depends on the level of competition his sport provides. A sport like decathlon, where winning it doesn't necessarily even make you wealthy, do we really think that anything like the most talented athletes in the world are in that event? Seems to me pretty much by definition that you only train to be a decathlete at this point if you aren't good enough at the sports people actually follow.

[tha_rock220]

Yeah. When you watch Phelps, he excels most in straight up power swimming. When he does the more technique oriented swims, like butterfly or breaststroke, he's a little weaker. Of course, his tremendous motor and power allow him to still excel in such swims, but he's less polished and therefore more vulnerable. He knows it too, that's why he really picked only one event where he had to butterfly from beginning to end, and the butterfly is still something that power and physique is more of an advantage in than breaststroke, which is more patience and technique based.

I think a Decathlon athlete is the most underhyped athlete of the Olympics. They test skill, stamina and mental toughness like few other events, with Triathlon coming in second, lagging behind in the skill test but maybe stronger in the stamina test. So Bryan Clay is, by this category, the most impressive athlete of the Olympics.

You can get by on power with the breaststroke, but the butterfly is downright nasty on mistakes. Weaker is a relative term here anyway. He was weaker on the fly, but still managed to consistently smash record even in fly races.

I'm going with Phelps. Dominance in the pool and dominance on the track are about equal, but Phelps domination was just otherworldly. I couldn't see Bolt taking on a heavier load and continuing to smash records and rack up golds like he did. Chances are adding the 400m and another relay probably would have hurt.

[tracey_nice]

You can get by on power with the breaststroke, but the butterfly is downright nasty on mistakes. Weaker is a relative term here anyway. He was weaker on the fly, but still managed to consistently smash record even in fly races.

I'm going with Phelps. Dominance in the pool and dominance on the track are about equal, but Phelps domination was just otherworldly. I couldn't see Bolt taking on a heavier load and continuing to smash records and rack up golds like he did. Chances are adding the 400m and another relay probably would have hurt.

Um, no. Track > swimming.

[Hendrix]

Personally I was more impressed with Bolts performances then Phelps. But it's close, and Phelps was pretty sick too.


The track W/R's I just think are harder. Since he's going on a level playing feild as past W/R holders (actualy slight disadvantage with headwinds and such) where Phelps had a swim suit that's going to take's 2% off his time. Plus sprinting has a way bigger talent pool. 99% of the world has ran at some point in their life so you get the cream of the crop. Where far fewer people around the world have a chance to compete in swimming. Still Phelp's 8 golds is an amazing feat.

[Doctor MJ]

Plus sprinting has a way bigger talent pool. 99% of the world has ran at some point in their life so you get the cream of the crop. Where far fewer people around the world have a chance to compete in swimming. Still Phelp's 8 golds is an amazing feat.

I'd agree it's a bigger talent pool, but there's no way a country the size of Jamaica dominates sprinting if every country were devoted entirely to track. My immediate thought is of Americans, for example, when they saw Bolt, was not 'man I wish he were an American' but 'man I wonder how good he'd be at football and basketball' because were he born here, he'd have ditched track in a heartbeat for those other sports if he were truly gifted at them.