Yeah, it's impressive. I'm not sure how much the overall medal count means, because most of the guys on that list were swimmers and runners who each have multiple events in which they can compete. Some incorporate the others.

I know literally nothing about swimming. My knowledge of the sport goes like Michael Phelps, Ian Thorpe and then Mark Spitz. Obviously it's good to watch though. At first I thought it was a bit cheapened because they do have all those different categories for the strokes, but to beat people who maybe only qualify for the backstroke and spend all their time preparing for the backstroke while another guy is splitting time between 7 or 8 different events with 17 races in all makes it possibly more impressive. Also, given my knowledge of the sport, I have no idea how it compares to golf which has tremendous, tremendous depth but just no one anywhere close to Tiger. I saw the US team smash that world record in the 4x100 (I think) relay and that just seemed weird. Like not even possible weird.

It's been good to watch. I can't squeeze enough excitement out of it to call it one of the greatest things ever since I just know nothing about what he's doing but obviously it is going down as one of the greatest accomplishments ever.

I don't think him winning 6,7 or 8 golds should automatically make him the best Olympian ever though because others in other sports simply don't have the opportunity to compete for that many golds.