What does it mean when we look at the performance of the US men's swimming team at Beijing without Phelps....... i.e. without the man carrying the team? Is he merely the "Vince Young" of a slightly above average football Team?
We essentially lose the 400 free relay, 100 fly (Ian moves form 4th to 3rd), 200 IM and 400 IM (Lochted moves to silver), 200 free and 200 fly. That's makes 6 less golds and one extra bronze.
The US would effectively only win 2 individual events...... the 200 and 100 back.
Is Phelps a true representation of the state of US men's swimming or and exception?
www.nbcolympics.com/.../index.html
Former Member
It's a fact of sports that the best player wins and typically carries the team. I don't see it as any big deal and most of us enjoy the spectacle.
Au Contraire my friend. Take a look for example at a stellar performers in the past..... e.g. Matt Biondi. In the 1988 Games he wins the 50 and 100 free but two Americans get 2nd to him.... Jager and Jacobs respectively in each event. The relays win by fairly decent margins, enough to remove Mr. Biondi from the equation and still take these events. The team appears to survive much better with Biondi's absence than the Phelps situation we have just witnessed.
Mr. Ruiter:
Your hypotheticals are fun to imagine, but they don't examine the team situation "sans" Phelps.
John Smith
If in fact the USA's best men are not much faster than rest of world - is it because our men aren't improving much? Or is that the rest of world is catching up? I haven't looked at the details but I think American records continue to improve.
Other countries, like Japan, have a once in thirty years swimmer too - like Kitajima. Japan is on a resurgence in swimming, but only Kitajima is a WR holder.
France seems to have great sprinters, but do they have IMers and flyers?
No matter what the answers to these questions - I'd like to see USA swimming work harder to recruit more into the sport. I would really like to see more minorities, especially African Americans, swimming. Too many great athletes are playing other sports.
I can't resist.
A lack of depth?
My fear is less about the immediate now and more about near term to long term future. I base this comment looking at the kids' meets I go to and seeing the female/male makeup of the teams. I only have daughters, so I'm not helping the ratio, but the disparity is very noticeable. On our kids team, we'll field A to E relays for the 11-12 girls and maybe field an A and B team for the boys.
If we want a long term, strong men's swimming in this country, we've got to increase the funnel of kids at the entry level and then keep them in the program. My hope is that guys like Phelps, Lezak, Lochte, etc. can really help market mens' swimming as a viable & "manly" sport for our young boys to aspire to.
I agree with hbuck and geek.
You cannot assume that taking one person out, everyone else moves up one place in unison. Look at Soni and what she did with the hand she was dealt!! Or Trickett and her I-made-it-to-the-medal-stand-because-the-Chinese-girl-false-started!
Goodsmith will love this one:
See women's 200 backstroke finals start list vs. final results. See also picture!!
Can you open this?
www.usaswimming.org/.../84_otrials.pdf
What does this mean for USMS men's swimming? Will there be less swimmers, or more? What is the trend, measured by USMS statistics (if any)?
My fear is less about the immediate now and more about near term to long term future. I base this comment looking at the kids' meets I go to and seeing the female/male makeup of the teams.
Here's one more data point. I looked at the state cuts for HS swimming in Michigan, where I grew up, and they are actually the same or slower now than when I was in high school and that was 20 years ago! These are the boy's cuts. I have no idea about the girls.
..., but I'd like to think the US continues to have the depth and ability to pull off a great haul like this even without him one day.
It only took 36 years for it to happen after Spitz so I hope you are a very patient person.
I do know there are problems with our beloved sport, there are problems with every sport. I just simply don't believe every problem is a sign of the apocalypse.
What does it mean when we look at the performance of the US men's swimming team at Beijing without Phelps....... i.e. without the man carrying the team? Is he merely the "Vince Young" of a slightly above average football Team?
We essentially lose the 400 free relay, 100 fly (Ian moves form 4th to 3rd), 200 IM and 400 IM (Lochted moves to silver), 200 free and 200 fly. That's makes 6 less golds and one extra bronze.
The US would effectively only win 2 individual events...... the 200 and 100 back.
Is Phelps a true representation of the state of US men's swimming or and exception?
www.nbcolympics.com/.../index.html
Two problems:
One, you're assuming that if we took out Phelps we'd be replacing him with . . . no one. We'd probably be replacing him with a bunch of people who specialize in their events.
Secondly, at that level of competition, it's all about the extreme observations and the tails of the distribution. It's just not reasonable to make the comparison without comparing everyone. It's like saying, "Well, the Colts weren't that great two years ago, because if they didn't have Peyton Manning they wouldn't have won the Super Bowl."
You can "If . . ." forever and think you know what would have happened, but you never do.
I don't really understand the orginal posters point or question. We weren't without Phelps, so why think about it. Any team iwth out the greastest swimmer in history would be a lesser team...duh. Phelps will be back in 4 years (in what capacity remains to be seen) and 4 years is a long time to refresh the talent pool. Who knows what will come out of it. But you can pretty much be guaranteed that the US will still be at the top of the talent pool (no pun intended).
Chowmi and Haroldbuck,
I fully agree with you that there are always remote possibilities of qualifies further down the list stepping up to superb performances. However, the likelihood of this happening in all 5 of Phelp's events, you will have to agree is not very probable. Actually, the likelihood of a 3rd place qualifier at the US Trials finishing 1st is not very common even before the reduction from 3 to 2 qualifiers prior to 1980 .
My point was to address the boys swimming issue that Knelson and Patrick Brundage have accurately pointed out. My son swims age group in Denver. There are routinely more girls than boys in every event by a margin of 20% or more.
I suppose you can mentally roll the dice and plan on a Phelpisan performance for the US team every 4 years, but I'd like to think the US continues to have the depth and ability to pull off a great haul like this even without him one day.
I know Geek will disagree as he believes there are no concerns in the swimming universe.
John Smith
