michael phelps--how many thing he will do it?

Originally posted by LindsayNB It seems a shame that someone like Phelps will not do as well as he might due to the schedule. Have Phelps and Crocker ever raced the 100 butterfly when Phelps was well rested? Looking at the trials, I wonder if it wouldn't be more interesting if swimmers could choose to use their time from preliminaries to qualify for the finals instead of swimming in the semi-finals. You would get some swimmers doing fast times in the prelims and arriving at the finals better rested. The prelims and semis would be more interesting and the finals faster. A. I would say that Crocker beat Phelps at World's under circumstances where Phelps was "relatively rested" given his multi-event schedule (remember the 400 im was at the end of that meet). B. The semi-finals does work to the advantage of some swimmers in that you can finish 16th in the prelim and still make it to the next round. BTW, for what it's worth I think that Phelps will beat Crocker in Athens, even though I'm pulling for Crocker since we need a 50 meter pool in Maine. That gives him four individual gold medals and means that his Spitzian fate is in the hands of his US teammates (who says swimming isn't a team sport?). I agree it's not highly probable but would disagree that it is so impossible as suggested by Tom Ellison. As Phelps so aptly replied to similar Ellison like prouncement "it's not impossible because Spitz did it once"

Originally posted by LindsayNB It seems a shame that someone like Phelps will not do as well as he might due to the schedule. Have Phelps and Crocker ever raced the 100 butterfly when Phelps was well rested? Looking at the trials, I wonder if it wouldn't be more interesting if swimmers could choose to use their time from preliminaries to qualify for the finals instead of swimming in the semi-finals. You would get some swimmers doing fast times in the prelims and arriving at the finals better rested. The prelims and semis would be more interesting and the finals faster. A. I would say that Crocker beat Phelps at World's under circumstances where Phelps was "relatively rested" given his multi-event schedule (remember the 400 im was at the end of that meet). B. The semi-finals does work to the advantage of some swimmers in that you can finish 16th in the prelim and still make it to the next round. BTW, for what it's worth I think that Phelps will beat Crocker in Athens, even though I'm pulling for Crocker since we need a 50 meter pool in Maine. That gives him four individual gold medals and means that his Spitzian fate is in the hands of his US teammates (who says swimming isn't a team sport?). I agree it's not highly probable but would disagree that it is so impossible as suggested by Tom Ellison. As Phelps so aptly replied to similar Ellison like prouncement "it's not impossible because Spitz did it once"