Columnist disses Phelps, slams swimming

It's possibly correct to say Bolt is a better all around athlete than Phelps - depending on how you measure better athlete. The only fair way to measure athleticism would be to have both athletes compete in some sort of all around competition involving multiple athletic disciplines. Phelps obviously had a huge edge in the water, Bolt on the land. Bolt is most likely physically stronger (i.e could bench press more, squat more, and so on). Bolt would most likely have an edge in pretty much every land based competition - as in, Bolt would most likely take Phelps in a game of one-on-one basketball. The only other way to measure who is the best all around is dominance in their respective sports. The simple answer is that Phelps did more events, won more gold, and thus was more dominant than Bolt. Getting into the technical details of which sport requires more skill or talent, or who had better competition is at best a toss up and in the end a matter of opinion. Keep in mind that any discussion of this sort is completely futile. You can't even get people to agree what constitutes a sport, or whether Lance Armstrong is an athlete (another idiot columnist). Whoever would win between Phelps and Bolt depends on large part how you select the events for the competition. So let's vote on the best Olympic athlete of all time, right? Not so fast. Other than the obvious problem of uninformed voters outweighing those who know something on the topic, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (http://tinyurl.com/6bn9tw) proves that in any situation with more than two choices, no voting system can accurately reflect group preferences in all situations. Not that this sort of debate isn't fun. It's just ridiculous to think there's a "correct" answer.

It's possibly correct to say Bolt is a better all around athlete than Phelps - depending on how you measure better athlete. The only fair way to measure athleticism would be to have both athletes compete in some sort of all around competition involving multiple athletic disciplines. Phelps obviously had a huge edge in the water, Bolt on the land. Bolt is most likely physically stronger (i.e could bench press more, squat more, and so on). Bolt would most likely have an edge in pretty much every land based competition - as in, Bolt would most likely take Phelps in a game of one-on-one basketball. The only other way to measure who is the best all around is dominance in their respective sports. The simple answer is that Phelps did more events, won more gold, and thus was more dominant than Bolt. Getting into the technical details of which sport requires more skill or talent, or who had better competition is at best a toss up and in the end a matter of opinion. Keep in mind that any discussion of this sort is completely futile. You can't even get people to agree what constitutes a sport, or whether Lance Armstrong is an athlete (another idiot columnist). Whoever would win between Phelps and Bolt depends on large part how you select the events for the competition. So let's vote on the best Olympic athlete of all time, right? Not so fast. Other than the obvious problem of uninformed voters outweighing those who know something on the topic, Arrow's Impossibility Theorem (http://tinyurl.com/6bn9tw) proves that in any situation with more than two choices, no voting system can accurately reflect group preferences in all situations. Not that this sort of debate isn't fun. It's just ridiculous to think there's a "correct" answer.