I posted the following comment about Hersh's column on the Tribune's website:
It's of course impossible to compare athletes across sports or across generations. I don't know if Michael Phelps is better than the people in your top five any more than you do. I do want to quibble with two of your top five though.
Paavo Nurmi competed at a time when distance running was not the worldwide phenomenon it is today. For example, in 1920 the Boston Marathon had a whopping 76 entrants. In 1930 that had ballooned to a staggering 218. In contrast, 20,453 people ran in 2005.(These figures come from the BAA website.) Given the far greater competition today it's highly unlikely that Nurmi could compete in such a wide range of distances at the elite level. Today we are rightfully awed when a distance runner can double in the 1500 and 5k or in the 5k and 10k. It's not because they are somehow less capable than Nurmi was. It's because the level of competition is so much higher.
Carl Lewis fails my test on a different axis. He probably knowingly used performance enhancing drugs during at least some of his career.(See the Wikipedia entry for Lewis and Ben Johnson.) That he tested positive yet was not banned from the team probably speaks more to the compromised ethics of the USOC than to Lewis's claim of inadvertent use. In comparison, check the Wikipedia entry for Rick DeMont, who lost his 400m free gold medal in the 1972 Olympics and lost other opportunities to compete at those same games. By the admission of the USOC this was their fault, not DeMont's. Approximately twenty years later Lewis gets a pass for the same stimulants (pseudoephedrine). Today we snicker when an athlete tests positive for a banned substance then claims "inadvertent use".
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I posted the following comment about Hersh's column on the Tribune's website:
It's of course impossible to compare athletes across sports or across generations. I don't know if Michael Phelps is better than the people in your top five any more than you do. I do want to quibble with two of your top five though.
Paavo Nurmi competed at a time when distance running was not the worldwide phenomenon it is today. For example, in 1920 the Boston Marathon had a whopping 76 entrants. In 1930 that had ballooned to a staggering 218. In contrast, 20,453 people ran in 2005.(These figures come from the BAA website.) Given the far greater competition today it's highly unlikely that Nurmi could compete in such a wide range of distances at the elite level. Today we are rightfully awed when a distance runner can double in the 1500 and 5k or in the 5k and 10k. It's not because they are somehow less capable than Nurmi was. It's because the level of competition is so much higher.
Carl Lewis fails my test on a different axis. He probably knowingly used performance enhancing drugs during at least some of his career.(See the Wikipedia entry for Lewis and Ben Johnson.) That he tested positive yet was not banned from the team probably speaks more to the compromised ethics of the USOC than to Lewis's claim of inadvertent use. In comparison, check the Wikipedia entry for Rick DeMont, who lost his 400m free gold medal in the 1972 Olympics and lost other opportunities to compete at those same games. By the admission of the USOC this was their fault, not DeMont's. Approximately twenty years later Lewis gets a pass for the same stimulants (pseudoephedrine). Today we snicker when an athlete tests positive for a banned substance then claims "inadvertent use".
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