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Anyone not impressed with Michael Phelps?

In Sweden we give out these fancy little pins to people who pass certain swimming tests. He should get those instead of medals.

simmarken.jpg
 
bicpup269 said:
Don't give a swimmer one medal for each race he does, give him one medal for the longest race he competes.

Only reason he has the most gold is because they didn't give Gretzky a gold medal for for every game he won.
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it is pretty stupid how they not only give a medal for every-single-damn-swimming race, but that they even have these different races to begin with.

it cheapens the medals.
 
it's stupid how many (swimming) styles they have to being with.. who the fuck gives?

let's have running races where they run backwards, sideways, and for fun blind fold them too.

swimming races should be contested only by the different distances, NOT the different styles.


to answer your question: NO, i am by no means impressed by michael phelps.
 
Swimming is difficult. I can barely swim a couple of laps and I get exhausted.

Michael Phelps winning so many medals is only impressive when it comes to the sport of swimming.

The fact that he is considered the record holder of the entire Olympics is meaningless because there is no way the athletes in other sports can possibly win so many medals in the first place. Many events just give out one medal and the athletes have to compete multiple times in order to win that medal.
 
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It would be interesting to see how many people in this thread could even swim 500 yards continously; hell, if they could swim 100 yards butterfly.

I don't think Phelps is the best Olympian ever, but the people completely disregarding how difficult the sport is are insane.

I totally concede that it is a much smaller talent pool than a lot of events.

Just don't "it's JUST swimming" me. It's annoying and short-sided
 
^^^^^
I agree with him, sure I think its BS to consider him the "greatest olympian ever" for the reasons stated throughout this thread but its as stupid to say "its just swimming".... most olympic sports are "just doing some stupid action" and by that same argument you can discredit almost all sports.
 
Being consistently the best, for that long , is impressive.
 
jeez, not impressed by Michael Phelps. There are some tough critics in the Mayberry.

Waht else does the guy have to do?
 
Im impressed that phelps can do it considering all the weed he smokes.
 
He's an awesome swimmer but I get pissed when people talk about his gold medals. That's why 'most decorated olympian' doesn't mean shit. Could you imagine if they gave out gold medals for best slam dunk, most free-throws, best pass, best three-pointer, etc? Holy shit, Kobe would be the best athelete in history!!!
 
One of the greatest Olympians ever. FACT!
 
PoundForPound said:
it's stupid how many (swimming) styles they have to being with.. who the fuck gives?

let's have running races where they run backwards, sideways, and for fun blind fold them too.

swimming races should be contested only by the different distances, NOT the different styles.


to answer your question: NO, i am by no means impressed by michael phelps.
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It's dumb that they're getting rid of wrestling. But keeping all these ridiculous variations of swimming when they should just use the most effective form. I understand the difference between each stroke but it seems stupid to have an event for a stroke that no one would use outside in a real world situation. Why isn't doggy style in the olympics?

Like someone else said it would be the equivalent of them having a backwards, blindfolded, potato sack, midget on back, legs shackled, etc. running event.
 
Naramie said:
It's dumb that they're getting rid of wrestling. But keeping all these ridiculous variations of swimming when they should just use the most effective form. I understand the difference between each stroke but it seems stupid to have an event for a stroke that no one would use outside in a real world situation. Why isn't doggy style in the olympics?

Like someone else said it would be the equivalent of them having a backwards, blindfolded, potato sack, midget on back, legs shackled, etc. running event.
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There is no most effective form of swimming though. Freestyle is obviously the fastest, but they have to give up muscle mass and also use a lot more energy. On the other side, breaststroke is much easier to do for long periods and the swimmers generally carry around a lot more muscle. Each of the strokes require different physiques and skillsets. Like other people said, comparing the different strokes is much more akin to the comparing field events vs running rather than running backwards, sideways, etc. Also, like people said, the argument that there are too many distances in swimming is a bit absurd.
 
I just read his wikipedia and I have to admit I am very impressed by his performance. He made the olympic team when he was 15 and set(or helped to set) 7 world records and 1 Olympic record in Beijing. And he likes to smoke weed. The dude is the man.
 
I'm impressed with him as an athlete, but not by his medal count.

As been stated before, Swimming has an outrageous number of events that an athlete can participate in.

One thing I didn't see mentioned yet is that swimming is LOW-IMPACT. Much more difficult to get injured in that sport. This is why I think it's unfair to compare it to track events.
 
How can you NOT be impressed with him... That guy is a rockstar! Easily one of the best Athlete's to have ever lived. Dates Models. Makes millions and millions of dollars. And can you imagine if he wasn't Michael Phelps and looked like that? He'd be meeting fat chicks on plenty of fish... I met Michael Phelps at the Ram by my school. Dude was awesome, even lauged when my drunk friend kept challenging him to a swim race. Took home two Tri-delts as well... or so the story goes. Phelps is a boss.
 
bicpup269 said:
Don't give a swimmer one medal for each race he does, give him one medal for the longest race he competes.

Only reason he has the most gold is because they didn't give Gretzky a gold medal for for every game he won.
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They didn't give Phelps a gold medal for every race he won either. It's for every event won. If you have no real understanding of swimming and the different events, there really is no way to understand how talented he is. The supremacy he held over everyone across such a vast number of different events would be like Gretzky being the best offensive player and the best goalie in hockey.
 
chanwahyaoh said:
I'm impressed with him as an athlete, but not by his medal count.

As been stated before, Swimming has an outrageous number of events that an athlete can participate in.

One thing I didn't see mentioned yet is that swimming is LOW-IMPACT. Much more difficult to get injured in that sport. This is why I think it's unfair to compare it to track events.
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Swimming may be low impact but the toll it takes on the body is quite high. Most swimmers ends their careers with their shoulders and most joints extremely worn out. Track primarily puts stress on the lower body, but swimming puts large amounts of stress on every part of the body. Also, not quite sure what injuries have to do with how great of an athlete a person is.
 
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