What a machine this guy is 21 gold medals and possibly another 3 surely has to go down as the greatest Olympian of all time
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What a machine this guy is 21 gold medals and possibly another 3 surely has to go down as the greatest Olympian of all time
Its hard to compare between the events, Phelps has more opportunity for golds compared to a competitor that is only competing in one event in a games, and if you lose that event you have no others chances for you to gain gold.
Steve Redgrave won 5 golds in 5 consecutive games. Which i feel is a greater achievement.
I agree with your point about the number of events that Phelps can compete in. A boxer, for example, doesn't have that opportunity.
But had Phelps been born a few months earlier, he probably would have golds in 5 consecutive games. He's on four now and he came 5th in Sydney 2000 after he'd just turned 15. About six months later, in the same event, he broke the world record.
Its a fair point, similarly Redgrave won a bronze in his first Olympics and if timings were different, he could have had golds at 6.
Phelps is definitely in the top end of the discussion, in regards to Olympian achievements, and it then comes down to personal opinion.
If you look at the top medalist in the Olympics (summer), 4 of the top 10 are swimmers, so its a clear advantage to be in this sport if you want to win multiple medals.
Phelps quite likely would've lost his individual race if the Olympics were 6 months further along, he only won by .04 of a second so I would guess 6 months is a long time in swimming with such a small margin.
Although it's a fairly mute point as the relay team would still have won in 6 months so he'd have got the 5th consecutive medal anyway.
Just ignore me.