Is how much time Phelps won by in the 100m fly. He has the 7th gold, Comment?

Will he get the 8th medal? And beat the record?

Edit: oh and if you have been in a hole for 2 weeks, or are a poor college kid... we are talking about the olympics and Phelps' winning of his 7th gold

Comment:  When one person can win so many events, that means that those events are too similar.

Notice how it is always swimmers that win a zillion medals?  We should do away with about half or two-thirds of all swimming events.

Sure the events are different strokes, but the evidence is pretty clear that skills translate very well across strokes.  Why not add doggie-paddle and side-stroke while we are at it?

These events make sense in a swim-only meet (kind of, at least), but in a multi-sport event it is just way overkill.

And track is in many ways similar, but with some stark differences that illustrate my point.  While some of the same guys can compete in the 100m and 200m, those guys are usually weak in 400m and useless in 800m and longer runs.  Winning two running events is spectacular, winning three is astonishing.  Winning seven is outright impossible.

Then look at the jumping events.  Hardly anybody can win more than one of those, because they are all so different. 

If we applied swimming theory to track and field, here are some of the events we would have:

50m run

150m run

250m run

100m run with your hands behind your back

150m run with your hands behind your back

1.5 mile run

2.5 mile run

3 mile run

standing long jump

1-legged standing long jump (left foot)

1-legged standing long jump (right foot)

high-jump (flop only)

high-jump (scissors only)

high-jump (dive only)

high-jump (freestyle)

Frozen Balls wrote: Decathlon? edit: I don't know where I'm going with this. edit again: ^^^ hahaha standing long jump

Decathlon is an excellent example.  Notice how no decathlete in modern times has been even marginally competitive against the specialists in any single event.

And you laugh at standing long jump - that was an actual event at many track events back in the day, not so long ago.  It was ditched mostly because it was deemed too similar to running long jump.  Swimming should take some lessons.

Robo Did you hear that The other coach sent in a challenge? It stayed the same, the watched through the slow-mo cams. msnbc kept me in touch on that.. i was suprised they can challenge

RoboCop wrote: Blah blah blah. The different types of strokes are different. Some of them are much slower than others.

Blah blah blah indeed.  The evidence is overwhelming.  No other event(s) offers a single athlete a legitimate opportunity to win so many different races.  Compared to all other events in the summer olympics (gymnastics being the next closest), the various swimming events are far too similar.

Either they should add more variations of other events, or eliminate some variations on swimming.

In a swim meet, by all means go nuts.  Compete in doggie-paddle for all I care.  But this isn't a swim meet.

lilsully4 wrote: Robo Did you hear that The other coach sent in a challenge? It got turned after they went through the slow-mo cams. msnbc kept me in touch on that.. i was suprised..

so phelps didn't win that event? that's craziness....i think it's awesome that the competition was that close though...

Beil wrote: lilsully4 wrote: Robo Did you hear that The other coach sent in a challenge? It got turned after they went through the slow-mo cams. msnbc kept me in touch on that.. i was suprised.. so phelps didn't win that event? that's craziness....i think it's awesome that the competition was that close though...

SORRY! he did!! i will edit that

Frozen Balls wrote: usafpilot07 wrote: /waits for gatyr He has some...unique...stories about swimming, if I recall.

unique? the little i know about gatyr means that that is bad

http://www.officetally.com/the-office-season-5-promos/4/ - http://www.officetally.com/the-office-season-5-promos/4/

murder checkers

Gatyr wrote: Akhmed wrote: RoboCop wrote: Blah blah blah. The different types of strokes are different. Some of them are much slower than others. Blah blah blah indeed.  The evidence is overwhelming.  No other event(s) offers a single athlete a legitimate opportunity to win so many different races.  Compared to all other events in the summer olympics (gymnastics being the next closest), the various swimming events are far too similar. Fly and free use the same muscles, but that's about as close as it gets, and even then, the best butterfliers and freestylists at any distance are different people. If you look at any other dominant swimmer on the international stage, they are able to compete dominantly in three or maybe four events. Ryan Lochte has made it to 3 individual finals and that would be a tremendous success for any non-Phelps Olympian. Aaron Peirsol, who has dominated the backstroke circuit for as long as I remember ever caring for swimming, has ONLY dominated backstroke. Brendan Hansen has only ever done well as a backstroker. Jason Lezak has never done anything other than the 100 and 50 free on the international level. None of the women in the past or present have ever stretched their skills across so many strokes and been successful. I'll concede that you might get rid of the medley relay or one of the free relays, though.

You obviously know a lot more about swimming than I do. 

But my point is that your analysis is the type of thinking that would help decide WHICH events to eliminate.  The decision that something needs to be eliminated is, to me, entirely results-based.

In any other branch of athletics, winning two or more Olympic gold medals in the same year is super-amazing.  With swimming, it happens every four years without fail.  This is conclusive evidence that swimming is out of whack with other Olympic events.

Phelps, for instance, is touted as the "greatest Olympian of all time".  This is completely silly.  The American women's beach volleyball team, for instance, is far more dominant than he is.  Alexander Karelin, for instance, was a far greater Olympian than Phelps.  And so are many, many others.

Phelps gets this silly comparison based solely on his inflated medal count because he happens to compete in the one event where they hand out medals by the handful instead of one at a time.