My god…he’s got 16 medals, 14 of which are gold. And this to stack on top of it!
And the cowboys lost to the disgusting denver broncos.
inexcusable, even for preseason.
Phelps, along with his Team, did it!
Update done at the beginning of the thread.
Mufasa
[quote]msd0060 wrote:
And the cowboys lost to the disgusting denver broncos.
inexcusable, even for preseason.[/quote]
Wholeheartedly agree.
[quote]dreads989 wrote:
My god…he’s got 16 medals, 14 of which are gold. And this to stack on top of it![/quote]
What exactly does one do with 14 Gold Medals? Use them as wind chimes? Make them into earrings? Flava Flave necklaces? Have really expensive frisbee parties?
You can only hang so many around the house before guests get sick of looking at them.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
You can only hang so many around the house before guests get sick of looking at them.
[/quote]
That’s why you put one in each house.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
What exactly does one do with 14 Gold Medals? Use them as wind chimes? Make them into earrings? Flava Flave necklaces? Have really expensive frisbee parties?
You can only hang so many around the house before guests get sick of looking at them.
[/quote]
Natalie Coughlin (female U.S. swimmer) said that her medals from Athens are on the floor at the back of her closet.
It’d be interesting to see what different athletes do with them.
At 14 of them, Phelps might as well just start turning them into door-knobs around his house.
Melt’em down and make one huge ass medal.
[quote]DoubleDuce wrote:
I do agree that the talent pool is smaller for swimming than some sports, but I don�??t think it�??s as small as some people are making out.
In my high school swimming was as big a sport as track (and county for that matter). Not to mention you have some countries like Australia whose national past time is swimming. Just because you didn�??t grow up around it, doesn�??t mean there aren�??t people doing it.
Besides, just because the talent pool is smaller doesn�??t mean that he can�??t be the greatest athlete ever, it just makes it harder to compare because you have to question his competition.
In addition if you are arguing small talent pools in terms of Olympic events, swimming shouldn�??t even be in the equation. I would think swimming is one of the larger internationally practiced sports in the Olympics.
I do agree that its crap that things like team metals get treated as one win though.
[/quote]
I agree. It’s kind of stupid to compare athletes from different sports to each other anyway. Different sports select for different traits. An ideal body for swimming is different then an ideal body for running an 100 meter dash.
Who’s more athletic an Olympic lifter or a marathon runner. They are at different ends of the athletic spectrum. The runner can’t come close to producing the power it takes to clean 200 kilos off the ground and lifter doesn’t have the super efficient aerobic energy system to average 5 minutes miles over a 26.2 mile race. Neither would be elite at soccer.
People seem to be stuck on the idea of the freak athlete who could dominate any sport. Just have not seen that at an elite level. On top selection these guys have been training for so long at their sports that they have developed adaptions that are very specific to their sports. Bo Jackson & Deion Sanders were great football players (well Bo could have been) but they were the middle of the pack in baseball.
Michael Phelps is in my opinion the greatest swimmer the world has seen. And I’m Australian. Grant Hackett (Australian swim team captain) said more or less the same.
I don’t think there’s even a comparison with Thorpe. Ian Thorpe was truly great at only one stroke, and the only event he really still “owns” is the 400 free. If Phelps stops doing the 400 IM like he’s talked about, I think he’d be able to take the 400 free record as well. It’s going to be interesting to see how he goes.
All that said, I am in awe of his workload over the Olympics and how he went.
5 individual golds, 4 individual world records, 3 team golds and world records. Jesus!
And for the clean/on drugs debate; samples are now going on ice for up to 8 years. I think we’ll know for sure by 2016, till then it’s all just hearsay. And I do think he’s clean.