GreatestLaker
#FirePelinka
How can you say this when Patrick Mahomes exists.
Michael Phelps ranked the best athlete of the 21st Century by ESPN
- Thread starter Jplaya2023
- Start date
Obviously i'll be biased since boxing is my number 1 sport, but Floyd at 25???
Boxing is the only sport where you only have to compete 2-3 times a year and get to pick and choose who you compete against. And every other athlete being considered has to compete against the best people in the world in their sport regardless of size, whereas in boxing you only have to beat the people in your weight class (and sometimes, you don't even have to really beat them if your judges are in the right mood).
Floyd is my favorite boxer ever, but I understand why boxers, especially any boxer other than a heavyweight, wouldn't get the same respect on this list that other athletes get.
Brady 2-0 against Mahomes in the playoffs. 3 ain't 7
Mahomes has to win 9 rings to pass Brady
brady beat him in two different conferences including the Super Bowl
areohbee824
Superstar
Tiger, Federer, Brady, Ronaldo all dominated their sport and should be higher then 4
Bolt has a very good argument for the best athlete of the 21st century because sprinting is the most universal sport and he was the most dominant ever at it. Sprinting is a much more significant sport than swimming is.
Phelps's argument is that he dominated in a greater range of events (everything from 100m to 400m and in butterfly, freestyle, and medley) for a longer time (won gold medals from 2001 to 2016) and set a lot more records (39 in 5 different individual events plus 3 relays).
They're both good arguments.
They should've added 70 meters, 120 meters, 150 meters and 170 meters, and the same for relay for Usain Bolt
They should force swimmers to compete in like half of those things and them see who gets the highest average position and give them one medal. shyt is too similar to be different sports, or you wouldn't have people ending in (or close to) the top in so many different styles.
They're pretty even actually.
Swimming and Track have the same distance increments - 100, 200, 400, 800, 1500. Swimming has one shorter event and track has three longer events.
Swimming has 4 different strokes (6 freestyle, 2 backstroke, 2 butterfly, 2 breaststroke). Track has 8 running, 3 hurdles, 1 walking, 2 long jumping, 2 high jumping.
Swimming has 2 medley events, track has 1 decathalon.
In total, track has 17 individual events and 2 relays. Swimming has 14 individual events and 3 relays.
The only place I agree with you is that they should bush the 4x200m relay in swimming. Has no reason to exist.
That doesn't actually happen though. Normal great swimmers are elite in 1 swimming style, rarely 2. For Phelps to be elite in 2 strokes AND medley, and to win events all the way from 100m to 400m, was completely unprecedented.
Spitz and Biondi, the two most decorated male swimmers in history besides Phelps, only won individual golds in 2 strokes (freestyle/butterfly) and 2 distances (100/200 for Spitz, 50/100 for Biondi). Neither one ever won a single medley race or a single 400m race. There are 1-2 other swimmers who won gold in both freestyle and butterfly, but I can't think of any who won at medley too or who won at 100m and 400m both.
Most of the other great swimmers only won gold in one stroke. They might have competed at other strokes, but they weren't the best. It's not like the strokes are interchangeable - no one is ever elite at breaststroke and then elite at anything else. And it's extremely rare that anyone is elite at backstroke and then elite at anything else.
In track, you have 100m/200m doubles, 200m/400m doubles, 100m/110 hurdles doubles, and guys who have won 100m/200m AND long jump. You used to have sprinting/hurdles doubles too, I think Harrison Dillard was the last one to win gold in both though not because they're such different events, but because the competition is so strong in each one that you can't expect to top your event without specializing. In college there are guys that run both (and guys who run 100m/200m/400m) but you can't do that at the Olympic level and expect to medal.
Phelps's trump card is that he's won more distances (100m, 200m, 400m) and types of events (freestyle, butterfly, medley) than any other swimmer in history. Whereas Bolt never won as many different events as Carl Lewis and Jesse Owens (100m, 200m, long jump) won. He literally did the exact same thing in every single event he ever participated in - short distance sprinting.
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Purely anecdotal, but ive never in my life had a conversation about Michael Phelps. I had a convo about Tom Brady, Messi and Lebron today at work with folks from different backgrounds randomly in the office. Tiger had my grandad and my dad (a old school hood nikka), watching golf for the first time in their lives. Serena had folks watching tennis. Bolt was the most dominant athlete ive ever seen.
I feel like Phelps was chosen to generate traffic and engagement because........nah
I feel like Phelps was chosen to generate traffic and engagement because........nah
4 different guys should be higher than 4?
Federer and Ronaldo aren't even the undisputed best of their own sport in their own era. LOTS of people have Nadal, Djokovic, or Messi over them.
If you're going to pick a tennis player, Serena should be over the men any day because she was the clear best her entire career, not one of three.
That because black people don’t give af about swimmingIt's a respectable choice. He does have the most Gold medals in Olympic history
Cac panel picking a cac. Am I supposed to take this seriously ?
The similarities can’t be compared. Just look at the different body types of runners/sprinters vs swimmers.
And I didn’t say that you should finish #1 at everything, but finishing #1, top 3, top 5, top 10 in so many different things is suspect.
Never happening in track.
You are comparing freestyle and butterfly. With hurdles and no hurdles, but I’ve seen people who specialize in butterfly and freestyle. Never seen a top sprinter focus on hurdles and no hurdles.
So many short distance swimmers have 50, 100, 200+ all relay free. 100, 200 + relay butterfly. That’s like 8 different “sports” that many will compete in. And add the same for backstroke and you have people competing in double digit number of sports.
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I have an issue, with folks issuing that title to players in TEAM sports
individual sport makes more sense.
It's never happening in track because the competition is too strong, not because the events are too different.
100m, 200m, 400m, 110 hurdles, 400 hurdles, long jump, and triple jump are all similar enough that a particularly elite athlete could be good at any of them. Plus you can do 4x100m and 4x400m relays too. That's why you see athletes at the high school and even college level who switch back and forth between those events, and sometimes even decathalon too. Back in the day you could have added high jump to that list too, before the technique became more specialized.
The difference between track and swimming isn't the similarity in events. The difference is that there are WAY more people competing at track, so the level of competition is much higher. If there were as many elite swimmers as there are elite runners, then maybe Phelps would have been the greatest butterfly or the greatest medley, but there's no way he would have been able to be both and then win at freestyle sometimes too.