Listening to the Olympic commentators makes me cringe sometimes. Some of these cretins are convinced Usain Bolt is a greater Olympian than Phelps.
No Way----NO FRIGGIN' WAY!!!!
=> Michael has won more total golds and total medals over a longer period of time He Owned the pool in Beijing. Bolt dominated two individual and one relay over two Olympiads.
=> Michael's career has lasted much longer than Bolt's.
=> Michael probably has the aerobic capacity of 3 Bolts put together.
=> Bolt is all fast-twitch fibers - honed to perfection for sure but I'd love to see him try to run a 400 or 800m.Michael is fast and slow twitch fibers.
Former Member
They are both great.
Listening to the Olympic commentators makes me cringe sometimes. Some of these cretins are convinced Usain Bolt is a greater Olympian than Phelps.
No Way----NO FRIGGIN' WAY!!!!
=> Michael has won more total golds and total medals over a longer period of time He Owned the pool in Beijing. Bolt dominated two individual and one relay over two Olympiads.
=> Michael's career has lasted much longer than Bolt's.
=> Michael probably has the aerobic capacity of 3 Bolts put together.
=> Bolt is all fast-twitch fibers - honed to perfection for sure but I'd love to see him try to run a 400 or 800m.Michael is fast and slow twitch fibers.
OTOH, I thought it was great that Ado Bolton gave the nod to David Rudisha's 800m world record as the highlight event of the track session, not to any of Usain Bolt's runs. I think most people expected Bolt to win his events (despite all the "can he hold off Yohan Blake?" hype by NBC), whereas Rudish's WR came pretty much out of the blue.
I don't think that's necessarily a smoking gun. Carl Lewis's physique is probably more like Jesse Owens's than it is like Usain Bolt's. Bolt clearly gives up something at the start. Compared to shorter runners his start is more-or-less abysmal, but he (obviously) more than makes up for it on the back end where his height (longer legs) come into play. There's probably more than that to his success (part physiological, perhaps part pharmacological), but given his success over the past four years, I suspect nobody has been drug tested more than he has (perhaps Phelps or Lochte).
Not to :worms: but I think there is a better chance that Ye is clean than Bolt:bolt:.
I know. I looked at the WR progression for the 100 meter dash and in the past 25 years or so its been staggering.
1936 - Jessie Owens - 10.2
1988 - Carl Lewis - 9.92, 52 years later and only ~.28 faster.
2009 - Usain Bolt - 9.58, 21 years later and .34 seconds faster.
There must exist some type of quantitative Olympian greatness calculator, like ugh - medals or something?
The Sports-Reference web site is awesome for all sorts of Olympics statistics, as well as profiles and results of every Olympian.
Right now on their front page they have a list of the all-time top medal winners:
Top Medal Winners — Athletes
Athlete.................Country, Sport, Total
---------------------------------------
Michael Phelps............ USA, SWI, 22
Larysa Latynina.......... URS, GYM, 18
Nikolay Andrianov....... URS, GYM, 15
Borys Shakhlin........... URS, GYM, 13
Edoardo Mangiarotti.... ITA, FEN, 13
Takashi Ono.............. JPN, GYM, 13
Paavo Nurmi.............. FIN, ATH, 12
Bjørn Dæhlie.............. NOR, CCS, 12
Birgit Fischer-Schmidt.. GDR/GER, CAN, 12
Sawao Kato............... JPN, GYM, 12
Jenny Thompson......... USA, SWI, 12
Dara Torres............... USA, SWI, 12
Aleksey Nemov........... RUS, GYM, 12
Natalie Coughlin.......... USA, SWI, 12
Click on any of the above names to see a plethora of statistics about that athlete...
There must exist some type of quantitative Olympian greatness calculator, like ugh - medals or something?
Maybe they could put it to the test on the most scientifically accepted and accurate form of conjecture ever invented... an anonymous web poll. lol. :)
