Aussies NBC Sports 100 Greatest Olympians

[Gavin Excell]

Because so many other swimmers in history have won 20 gold? What a dumb post

swimming gold are far far easier to achieve than any other sport

Cheap gold

 

[year of the cat]

How is Paul Elvstrom, the four time Olympic champion yachtsman from Denmark not on that list ?

Being a former yachtie it was the first name missing that I noted. Robert Scheidt would be the other.

Furthermore, with Elvstrom, how many other Olympians have had their surname on the Victorian Derby winner too?

 

[Dan Moody]

Must be for humour value. If courage came into it they should have had Gabrielle Anderson-Schiesse (spelling ?) the Swiss marathon rummer who came last in 1984 !

She didn't come last

 

[Wallaby]

That was horrible to watch

Through my fingers. Just melting before our eyes. Also go back to ? 1908/12 Dorandro Petro. Similar circumstances to Scheisse

Have a look at this.

1948 marathon. Etienne Gailly of Belgium runs his first marathon. He enters the stadium first, but with the severe staggers. Then.....

 

[sydney eagle]

She didn't come last

Okay 37th then. The fact that she finished the race at all is a miracle and her effort should have been recognized in the list as one of the most heroic efforts in any sport at the games.

 

[Gingerbread man]

So Carl Lewis has 64 swimming golds. Yep makes sense.

I think is more about participation levels when you start comparing track to pool. Not every country has access to a 50m Olympic sized pool. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Eric the eel train in a 20m hotel pool

 

[GreyCrow]

I think is more about participation levels when you start comparing track to pool. Not every country has access to a 50m Olympic sized pool. Correct me if I'm wrong but didn't Eric the eel train in a 20m hotel pool

No, its about who you beat on the day. Does anyone think Michael Phelps and Eric ever swam in the same heat?

 

[Gingerbread man]

No, its about who you beat on the day. Does anyone think Michael Phelps and Eric ever swam in the same heat?

Ok I honestly don't understand your comment, if your implying that it's not Michael Phelps fault that he's won so many gold medals, I'm 100% with you, what Phelps has achieved is amazing and we will never see it again. To put my comment a different way, more people run than swim in the world, making it easier to win a gold medal in swimming.

 

[GreyCrow]

Ok I honestly don't understand your comment, if your implying that it's not Michael Phelps fault that he's won so many gold medals, I'm 100% with you, what Phelps has achieved is amazing and we will never see it again. To put my comment a different way, more people run than swim in the world, making it easier to win a gold medal in swimming.

And I did imply that too make a participation reason as to why he has won medals is wrong. He can only beat who he swims against. And he has done it 23 times.

Each of them Bolt and Usain compete against ( usually) 7 others .

 

[Barry_Badrinath]

And I did imply that too make a participation reason as to why he has won medals is wrong. He can only beat who he swims against. And he has done it 23 times.

Each of them Bolt and Usain compete against ( usually) 7 others .

You're not getting it.

Everybody on the planet runs at some point in their life (disabled aside), but there is a huge percentage of people that never learn how to swim, let alone swim butterfly. Pretty much everybody knows if they had potential to be a good runner or not. How many gun athletes (NBA, EPL, NFL, AFL, MLB, etc) never learned how to swim, or swim correctly?

Usain reached the pinnacle of a sport that everybody has tried at some point in their life. It's a lot less likely that there is somebody out there that could've been better than him than it is for Phelps.

 

[sydney eagle]

Another Olympic performer who possibly should rate a mention is Marina Lobach of the Soviet Union who won the Rhythmic Gymnastics gold in 1988 with a perfect score on every apparatus ! (Only won the medal by .05 of a point too !)

 

[sydney eagle]

Being a former yachtie it was the first name missing that I noted. Robert Scheidt would be the other.

Furthermore, with Elvstrom, how many other Olympians have had their surname on the Victorian Derby winner too?

If memory serves didn't he go on to compete in a later olympics with his daughter in one of the two handed classes ? Pity they didn't win, now THAT would have been something, a father/daughter medallist combination !

 

[year of the cat]

If memory serves didn't he go on to compete in a later olympics with his daughter in one of the two handed classes ? Pity they didn't win, now THAT would have been something, a father/daughter medallist combination !

That's right. In the Tornado class in his last Olympic campaign if memory serves me correct.

 

[Wallaby]

Another Olympic performer who possibly should rate a mention is Marina Lobach of the Soviet Union who won the Rhythmic Gymnastics gold in 1988 with a perfect score on every apparatus ! (Only won the medal by .05 of a point too !)

That's a good get. I know nothing about Rhythmic Gymnastics, but based on the principle that an Olympic Gold is an Olympic Gold, sheshould be up there.

Do the americans do Rhythmic Gymnastics. Silly question, I know...................

I think close this thread, under the principle that the article was written for a US audience, preferably those who know nothing about the Olympics beyond US athletes and fairy stories.

 

[mytym]

How many Swimming medals equate to a track / field medal? About 1:3?? And so how does Bolt measure up v Phelps?
It's not like on the track you have the sprints offering medals for the sideways and backwards techniques and a medley to boot it's just get down the other end the fastest.

Spot on!

Bolt is number 1 (at least in my memory - post 1984)

 

[sydney eagle]

Just thinking that if the U S men"s basketball "dream team" is included what about the U S S R women"s teams that won in 1976 and 1980 ?

 

[Mateyman]

Gail Devers was the World 100m Hurdles champ a couple of times, but kept falling at the Olympics. She did win the flat 100M twice, however. Mid-late 90s. She was certainly good enough, but Hurdles is tough.

Harrison Dillard was a hurdler who was the World record holder in 1948. He missed qualifying for the Olympics, but qualified in the 100m. He won gold.
He came back in 52 and won the 110m Hurdles.

Triple and Long jumpers usually do both events right up until they reach World Champ/Olympic level, but then specialise in one or the other because the physical impact on the body is different. Nevertheless, in a one-off event, a world top 8 triple-jumper could probably pull out a top-8 long-jump.

Similar with Discus and shot-putters. It's only when you really specialise and do the specific pliometric weight-bearing exercises that they tend to fall off. It was common up to the 1950s (1960s for the women) for athletes to do both at Olympic level. It's still pretty common at most National levels.

I actually think there are too many Olympic track events. If you want to do sprints - there should be one sprint. Similar with middle- and Long distance. And field. I think we need to just find the best pure athletes. So we want the best sprinter, thrower, jumper.
So -
100m - keep
200m (my favourite event) - drop
400m - keep.
800m - drop.
1500m - keep.
5/10000m - choose one.
Marathon - keep.
110/100m Hurdles - keep
400m Hurdles (at which I have coached national junior reps) - drop
Steeple - drop - just do serious cross-country including jumps, hills, mud, sand etc.

Field
Long Jump - keep
TJ - drop (it's a track version of butterfly or backstroke)
Hj - keep (I think - keep either that or LJ - maybe get5r rid of LJ).
Shotput - keep
Jav - keep
Hammer - drop
discus - drop

I just think that there are far too many 'fiddle' events that are basically just a repeat of another event with a slight wrinkle - eg, slightly longer, some technical rules about what you can and can't do (you will notice I haven't mentioned walks at all). There is no justification in swimming to do anything except freestyle.

All the other events are great fun to do and train for - but it's hard to get too excited about 'The best In the world at "swimming while moving my arms in a particular way and only lifting my head in the approved manner".

Faster, Higher, stronger - not cleverer, more flexible, or trickier.
.

High and long are completely different. Doesn't make sense to drop one. Rate the 800 an the 200 as well personally. Just think: Rudisha wouldn't have been anything special without an 800 metre event . Like the idea of a cross country race. Not sure why they don't try and get a cross rae at the olympics given sports like cycling get a mountain bike race.

 

[sydney eagle]

Cross country was in the Olympics from 1912 to 1924 but the 1924 race was so disastrous (run in hot weather over very rough terrain) with competitors collapsing all over the course, that they never tried it again. Only fifteen competitors finished the course out of 38 who started !

 

[Cmarsh]

What no one brought up on the above debate of athletics Vs Swimming and their relative worth is the aspect of race. It's not so much about how many have tried which sport or even access to facilties and resources although those things certainly play a part. It is well established that whites are dominant in the pool and blacks are superior in athletics.