I think that Johnny Weissmuller was better for his time than Mark Spitz because he was a natural. He workout not that much compared to Spitz who workout several times more yardage. Granted, Spitz did have the ideal olympics that porbably no other swimmer will do again. There is too much competition today compared to 1972 and there are few freestylers who can also won butterfly at the international level these days. This is for fun.
Parents
Former Member
It's not just that Mark Spitz won 4 individual gold medals in two different strokes (as jaw-dropping as that is by itself). It's also that he set 4 World Records while doing it. Think back to your penultimate meet from the season when you were in your prime. How extraordinary would it have been if you set 4 personal records in each and every one of your 4 individual events? Now consider that Mark was 4 for 4 in swimming the fast recorded time in all of human history! My vocabulary fails me. The greatest individual performance in a single meet ever: hands down, no questions at all, Spitz in 72.
Who's the greatest swimmer of all time? Gee, that depends on the era. We can talk round and round that one, and it would be like 2 kids trying to resolve whether Mighty Mouse could take Batman.
And, how come we aren't even considering women? If we talk about Johnny Weismuller, even though his records are demonstrably slower than more modern swimmers, because he dominated his competition, what about Shane Gould, or Dawn Frasier, or Debbie Meyer, or Shirley Babashoff, or Mary T. Meagher, or Tracey Caukins, or Janet Evans, or Dara Torres? Suppose that we could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that dominant swimmers who are widely suspected of doping were in fact clean. (Cornelia Ender's father was a Colonel in the Stasi, the E. German internal security police, when she was competing. He told Sports Illustrated that at the time he asked her coach if she was on steroids, and the coach told him she was not. Those of us who grew-up in the West cannot immagine the kind of guts it would take to lie to a senior Stasi officer about what you are giving his daughter. Suppose we could prove Ender was the one clean athlete in the E. German system.) And, how do you compare dominant female athletes to male athletes, and adjust for societal expectations as to when female swimmers should retire and "settle down" compared to male swimmers?
Just a couple of random observations.
Matt
Reply
Former Member
It's not just that Mark Spitz won 4 individual gold medals in two different strokes (as jaw-dropping as that is by itself). It's also that he set 4 World Records while doing it. Think back to your penultimate meet from the season when you were in your prime. How extraordinary would it have been if you set 4 personal records in each and every one of your 4 individual events? Now consider that Mark was 4 for 4 in swimming the fast recorded time in all of human history! My vocabulary fails me. The greatest individual performance in a single meet ever: hands down, no questions at all, Spitz in 72.
Who's the greatest swimmer of all time? Gee, that depends on the era. We can talk round and round that one, and it would be like 2 kids trying to resolve whether Mighty Mouse could take Batman.
And, how come we aren't even considering women? If we talk about Johnny Weismuller, even though his records are demonstrably slower than more modern swimmers, because he dominated his competition, what about Shane Gould, or Dawn Frasier, or Debbie Meyer, or Shirley Babashoff, or Mary T. Meagher, or Tracey Caukins, or Janet Evans, or Dara Torres? Suppose that we could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that dominant swimmers who are widely suspected of doping were in fact clean. (Cornelia Ender's father was a Colonel in the Stasi, the E. German internal security police, when she was competing. He told Sports Illustrated that at the time he asked her coach if she was on steroids, and the coach told him she was not. Those of us who grew-up in the West cannot immagine the kind of guts it would take to lie to a senior Stasi officer about what you are giving his daughter. Suppose we could prove Ender was the one clean athlete in the E. German system.) And, how do you compare dominant female athletes to male athletes, and adjust for societal expectations as to when female swimmers should retire and "settle down" compared to male swimmers?
Just a couple of random observations.
Matt
