Michael Phelps just won his eighth gold medal of this Olympics, and the 400m medley relay was the seventh race he won with a new world record.
It was such an incredible meet, especially the finishes to the 400m free relay and the 100m butterfly, that it's hard to put in perspective. (With his win over Crocker in '04, with his amazing .01 touch this year, and with his leg of the 400m medley relay just finished, I think Phelps swimming the butterfly for one hundred meters is officially my favorite thing to watch in sports.) The closest I can do to giving this justice is to think of what Mark Spitz said last night on NBC about how the greatest athletes know how to win. I've never been dominant enough at anything to know what that phrase really means, but it's as close as I can come to describing the zone some athletes get in where any victory is possible.
What's amazing is how unsurprising Phelps' triumph was. Yes, my faith faltered during that 100m butterfly, but for most of the week it felt likely that Phelps would win gold eight times. Only one other athlete has lived up to such high expectations in my time as a sports fan, and that was Michael Jordan in his last years on the Bulls. At first I thought Jordan deserves the edge because he did it night in and night out over a period of years, but then I consider Phelps' performances in the 2004 Olympics and 2005 and 2007 Worlds and I'm not so sure. Have you ever seen anyone else this good?
3 comments:
There aren't very many athletes in the world who are able to handle the type of pressure that Phelps has experienced this last week. He came into the games EXPECTED to win 8 gold medals. (Not to mention the million dollar bonus he was promised form Speedo if he won all 8.) To have that kind of pressure placed on you and still be able to preform when it counts is almost unbelievable. The only other athletes who would be comprable are Tiger and Jordan.
Tiger! I felt like I might be forgetting someone. He's not as dominant as Phelps and Jordan in that he doesn't win every tournament. He is about as dominant as a golfer can be, though, so he probably does belong on this short list. It's interesting how the sport itself factors in to the question: I can't imagine a soccer player, for instance, could ever achieve the Jordan-Phelps level of dominance. In baseball I've seen pitchers sort of do it ('99 Pedro, for example) but not over several years.
Phelps making $5 million/year seems criminally low to me, and no I am not kidding. I was kind of surprised when I heard about the $1 million bonus, because it's not very much compared to the feat. On the other hand I wonder what he does for Speedo's bottom line, as just about anyone who would care to own any of their products probably already does. I just feel glad I'm not the parent of a high-school swimmer now, as he/she would probably be hassling me to buy him/her one of those fancy new suits.
My friend on the phone just mentioned Lance Armstrong, another one I forgot. He's another good example, to go out and win the Tour so many years in a row with everyone cheating and gunning for him...hmmmm, I'm not sure where to rank Lance.
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