Against Michael Phelps

Anyone overdosed on Michael Phelps yet? Your not alone. I guess the incessant hype has gotten me to thinking critically about the Michael Phelps phenomenon.

After doing a little digging and thinking I have some opinions, observations.

Is Michael Phelps the greatest athlete ever? I think that is the wrong question. The 8 gold medals reveal not so much the greatness of Michael Phelps but the lack of competition in swimming right now. Sorry to pour cold water on the hype machine but facts are facts. The competition in swimming is just not there at the moment and that's why one guy (admittedly pretty good) was able to get 8 gold medals. The medal counts in swimming show the withering of competition clearly: United States 31 medals, Australia 20, China 6, France 6, Japan 5. Is something missing here? Remember the old days? Countries like the Soviet Union (then Russia), Germany, the whole east block and Great Britain were always there. That's really the elephant in the swimming room right now: the drop off in competition. In one Olympics (1976) the Soviet Union has actually got more medals in swimming than the U.S. -but they are not even in the top 5 now. That is an amazing cratering of a once potent athletic force. A potent force that swimmers of the last generation had to deal with but Phelps does not. As recently as 2004 Russia had a still dominant swimmer in Alex Popov who came out of the old now defunct Soviet system. But no more. Russia is hardly a shadow of it's former self in the world of swimming, same for the east block in general and also Britain has dropped off some.

The biggest competitor to the U.S. in swimming right now is Australia - a nation with less than 1/10 the population of the United States and less than 1/10 the GDP. After Australia the drop off is profound: France with only 6 swimming medals, China with 6 and Japan with 5. Compare this with the medal count in Track and Field (so far): United States 9, Kenya 7, Russia 6, Belarus 5 and Jamaica 4. Much more competition! Track and field of course is a sport with much lower barriers to entry - a sport that poor countries can do well in and by it's nature generates far more real competition than international swimming ever did. Sprinters have come out of the Carribean and Africa for decades. North African nations (and Great Britain) produce great middle distance runners. Kenya and Ethiopia produce great marathoners. Sometimes Japan and Korea produce great marathoners. A Chinese man won the 110 hurdles in 2004. The field is wide open. Swimming on the other hand is a somewhat elite sport that requires a lot of money and capital. African nations do not have the money for swimming programs. They do not need money to generate runners. At this point international swimming is the preserve of just a hand full of rich western nations - and Michael Phelps is the beneficiary of this evaporation of competition.

I have no doubt that if there had been swimmers of the caliber of Ian Thorpe or Alex Popov at this Olympics Phelps would not have had much of a chance to match Spitz. And Spitz was lucky to have competed *before* the rise of the Soviet Block swimming machine was complete. With more open competition neither Spitz nor Phelps medal counts would have been possible. To match Phelps in track someone would have to do something like this: win the 100m, 200m, 400m and 800m, 4X100 relay and 4X400, long jump and triple jump. It's never going to happen because track and field is just way more competitive.

As far as world and Olympic records (set by Phelps) go I have one word: technology. Swim suits and pool technology make swimming records pretty meaningless at present. Lets see how long Phelps records last. Also the margin of victory for Phelps on average has been less than Spitz.

Lastly, two events have been added to Olympic swimming since the Spitz era and this gave Phelps a clear advantage over Spitz as far as medal counts go.

So much for Michael Phelps being the greatest athlete of all time: the real story is the drop off in competition in an already constrained elite sport.

Phelps has gotten endless kudos in the media for "doing so much for the sport of swimming". I would like to ask: how so. Swimming is not a new sport nor is it a sport that Americans have had a difficult time competing in. I just don't get this. Swimming has been around since the very first Olympics and Americans have been strong competitors since the beginning. Remember names like Johnny Weismueller and Buster Crab? How exactly has Phelps been responsible for "doing so much for the sport" like our talking heads blather on about. I just don't get this. Can someone explain this to me?

I think what Phelps is doing so much for are certain American advertisers and marketers who seem intent on creating a cultural icon who can be used for their commercial purposes. Not quite the Olympic ideal. I am old enough to remember the 72 Olympics and I can tell you there was nothing like the hype machine over Spitz prior to the games. He pretty much exploded onto the scene during the games - and that seemed more real to me than this Phelps thing has felt. It has felt contrived and almost a fait-accomplis from the beginning. I suspect that the experts knew well that international swimming competition is not there right now and that gave Phelps practically a lock (barring a big screw-up). The only surprise to me was that two of the races were so close.

Another bad aspect of this: the Phelps story (in the American media) has crowded out other good stories that would have otherwise been presented. One of the highlights of this Olympics has been the record shattering 100 Meter final by Usain Bold. To bad NBC ignored it and jammed Michael Phelps down our throat all night long and waited until 2 in the morning to show Bolt.