More on Phelps as the greatest ever

Okay, I'm back, after doing some research to make sure a number of assumptions I had were correct, and I'm going to stick by my assertion of Michael Phelps as greatest Olympian ever. Now, bear in mind that I already conceded (albeit in a poorly written manner) that given the differences across sports and so forth, the word "indisputable" just isn't going to apply here. The only thing I would say is indisputable is that you can't put anyone clearly above him, and that he's clearly peerless in the pool at this point.

However, I will state my case for his place as greatest individual Olympian ever, and will take on all comers, with as open a mind as possible.

How am I going to draw comparisons across sports, eras, etc? Very simply, the way that I compare across eras in other sports - how does Phelps stack up relative to his peers, other swimmers, who at least in theory have had relatively the same opportunities that he has.

An initial dislaimer here - I'm throwing out the relays when evaluating swimming acheivements. There are two reasons for that. The first is that I'm looking at individual accomplishments, and trying to figure out how much an individual contributes to a relay outcome is very nebulous. Secondly, until very recently, relays were owned by the USA, so it unfairly tilts the playing field in favor of US swimmers. Case in point, Jenny Thompson, who is now tied for 3rd on the list of swimmers with 8 gold medals in her career - none of which came in an individual race. An excellent swimmer no doubt, but nowhere near the discussion of all-time best.

So, having removed the relays from consideration, what are we left with? Well, Phelps has won gold on 5 US relays, leaving him with 9 all-time individual gold medals. #2 on that list for all swimmers is Kristina Egerzegi of Hungary, with 5 individual golds. After her, you get a handful of swimmers with 4 individual golds (including Spitz), several with 3, etc. All of this is to say, prior to Phelps, 4 individual gold medals would have given you a legitimate claim to being the all-time greatest individual swimmer in Olympic history. Phelps and his 9 more than double that.

Let's go a little further. Phelps' 5 individual golds in Beijing was a new swimming record (it's been done a couple times in other sports), surpassing the previous record of 4 that his 2004 Athens haul shared with Spitz in '72 and Kristin Otto in '88 (Otto has a massive black cloud hanging over her accomplishments however, as the star of an East German women's program that was later discovered to have been involved in dramatic and systematic doping). Anyhow, Phelps also had a bronze in '04, which to the best of my research made him the first swimmer to medal in 5 individual events in the same Olympic. The point I'm getting at here - the two best performances by an individual swimmer in a single Olympics both belong to Phelps.

So, what am I driving at here? Well, I started out by saying I was going to compare Phelps to his swimming peers. The reality is, in terms of individual accomplishments, he is completely peerless in the pool. Career-wise, you could assign the difference between his accomplishments and the second-best on that list to another swimmer, and that swimmer would be in the conversation of all-time greats himself. And his second best performance at an single Games is better than anyone elses' best. Not to mention that, were I going to take the time to era-adjust accomplishments, I'd tend to give the nod to later accomplishments in swimming, simply because of how the sport has grown and the way the depth of the field has increased over time - more than twice as many countries won swimming medals in 2008 than did, for instance, in 1972.

So, I guess what I'm saying is that if Phelps is peerless in the pool, it's going to take an athlete who is similarly peerless in their arena to challenge him for the title of "greatest ever Olympian". I'm going to be doing some of my own research on this (slowly - remember, this is a hobby, not a profession), but I certainly welcome nominations.