When swimmer Michael Phelps took yet another gold medal in London this week, said John Leicester in the Associated Press, “no one could disagree with the bedsheet unfurled by fans in the crowd that said, ‘Phelps Greatest Olympian Ever.’” Phelps, 27, ended his Olympic career with an astonishing total of 18 gold medals, and 22 total medals. By winning another four golds in London, he easily surpassed the previous record of Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, said Cam Cole in the Vancouver Sun.Latynina, let’s remember, was awarded her 18 medals in a subjective sport in which capricious, often biased judges decide who wins. Phelps won his medals by “being faster than anybody from here to there.” Without question, he’s “the greatest Olympic athlete of all time.”
Perhaps he is by sheer medals won, said Robert Colville in The Daily Telegraph (U.K.), but other athletes deserve to be in that same pantheon. British rower Sir Steve Redgrave won gold medals at five consecutive Olympiads. Romanian gymnast Nadia Comaneci scored the first perfect 10s in Olympic history. Russian wrestler Alexander Karelin dominated every opponent over three Olympics. Phelps won so many medals because swimming is salami-sliced into a large number of slightly different events, each testing the same basic skill. Swimming is also relatively easy on the body, said Philip Hersh in the Los Angeles Times. Track-and-field star Carl Lewis, who retired with 10 medals, nine of them gold, was competing in “explosive events that strain tendons, ligaments, and muscles to the limit,” shortening his career. Phelps may be the greatest swimmer of all time, but Lewis was the greatest pure athlete.
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