Skip to main content

Phelps wins 8

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?

Comments

blaine said…
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.
9:31 AM
Mike said…
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.
4:40 PM
Mike said…
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.
9:42 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Mitchell Report

It came out today, and you may have already looked at it. If not, you can download it as a pdf all over the place, including from ESPN.com . Anyway, the big name named in it was Roger Clemens. That's what we've been waiting all this time for? I don't even know what to say, because this is like the least-surprising report of all time. I hate the gotcha crap that goes on when stuff like this happens. You know, the know-it-alls who say how obvious it was that Clemens had been cheating for years—hey, just look at his age! (Did these people say this so confidently  before Clemens was named? No. And have they ever heard of Nolan Ryan?) But seriously. He's huge, he put really big numbers for a really long time, and he's considered this super-intense jerk—basically, he's Barry Bonds on the mound. Setting aside the moral issues of steroid use (and believe me, I'm against it), I was hoping for some entertainment out of today's revelations, and I was sorely dis...
5 comments
Read more

The Top Dozen Pro Quarterbacks

With the NFL season over, it’s time for year two of my annual quarterback rankings . Actually, last year the list was of quarterbacks I’d take over Jake Plummer. Since such a list this year would be at least a novella, I’ve changed it to the top twelve quarterbacks. This list is intended to be the best quarterbacks as of today and/or next season. Thus, it won’t correspond perfectly with, say, my list of the best young quarterbacks . Vince Young’s completion percentage, for example, will count against him more here. That said, some predictions are still involved. (For example, will Jake Delhomme and Ben Roethlisberger bounce back?) The winners: 12. Philip Rivers, San Diego. Rivers may deserve a higher spot on this list. I’m just trying not to get too carried away. On the plus side, he’s on a fine team (if they have coaches next year) and has a fantastic arm. On the downside, he’s young and was nothing special in the playoffs. So there’s a chance he won’t be quite so good next year, tho...
9 comments
Read more

Who cares?

So we finally got done with the NBA playoffs after nearly two months of stretched-out play, and tomorrow's the draft. I really couldn't care less. I'm so burned out on the sport. Sadly, there's nothing else going on worth mentioning, so we might as well get into it. (Yes, baseball, Pugs, but I haven't really started following that this year yet, sorry.) Would the NFL hold its draft five days after the Super Bowl? Of course not, and not just because the league doesn't want to distract from the highlight of its annual calendar, the Pro Bowl. Of course, the NBA's situation is a little different. College play ended two and a half months ago, and the teams want to get draftees ready for the all-important summer league play (because the kind of guys that need the summer league always end up players). Not that when college basketball is over is relevant, anyway-the league is overrun by a bunch of high school players "just months removed from their prom" (...
12 comments
Read more