Quote Originally Posted by Preme View Post
Quote Originally Posted by Bilbo View Post
Phelps has won the 400 meters individual medley, 4 x 100 freestyle relay, 200 m freestyle, 200 m butterfly, 4x 200 freestyle relay, 200 m individual medley, 100 m butterfly and 4x100 medley relay.

I think swimming freestyle and butterfly are two totally different strokes and must be similar to a runner running 100 meters and 110 meter hurdles.

I guess for Bolt to match Phelps he would need the following.

100 meters
200 meters
110 hurdles
200 hurdles
400 metres
4x100 meters
4x200 meters

Then he'd be better imo.
swimming is dumb, there should be one 200m, one 400 etc

all this brest stroke, butterfly etc

its like have the 100m sprint, then the 100m side step.

and what are you talking about hurdles, i didn;t see phelps having anything to jump over.

Track and field is the bread and butter of all athletics, always has been, always will be realy.
Swimming different strokes takes skill, I don't see why it would be any easier to become world class in front crawl and butterfly than it would to master both running and jumping. I mean really how hard can it be to leap into a sandpit? They already have the speed and the leg power its only a case of learning another technique?

And before you say it's totally different, Carl Lewis was the world record holder in both 100 meters 200 meters and long jump.

The only swimmers who have really dominated the medals in their sports are Phelps and Spitz, and now Bolt is getting close to emulating Lewis and doing it on the track.

But I really don't buy this idea that a track athlete should only be expected to be good in one particular sprint.

They are elite athletes for God's sake they should be able to master the art of both running and jumping.