[The Unique Bloke]

(Original post by Drewski)
My manners are fine. It's not your fault I have a thing against stupid people.

I do note you've refused to try and back up your argument though....

As for everything else. C-, try harder.

Hahaha you need to remove those rusty tinted glasses , you really think you are just smarter than a person who you don't even know, just because he has a different view point.
I don't need to counter posts which are not worth taking a second look at.
I am not that crazy about you or the Olympics , to give a pea.
You are going no where in life.

[Drewski]

(Original post by The Unique Bloke)
Hahaha you need to remove those rusty tinted glasses , you really think you are just smarter than a person who you don't even know, just because he has a different view point.
I don't need to counter posts which are not worth taking a second look at.
I am not that crazy about you or the Olympics , to give a pea.
You are going no where in life.

Perhaps you should practise what you preach? You know nothing about me, merely assumptions based on your perception.

So you don't think your arguments are worth backing up? Not worth making the case to other people?

[Fallen]

(Original post by silverbolt)
An average world class athelete. If someone called me an average world class athelete id be damn chuffed

His point is that Phelps was able to win 8 gold medals in the 2008 Olympics, whereas another athelete who is equally good at their respective sport would only be able to compete in 1, 2, or maybe 3 competitions.

[The Unique Bloke]

(Original post by Drewski)
Perhaps you should practise what you preach? You know nothing about me, merely assumptions based on your perception.

So you don't think your arguments are worth backing up? Not worth making the case to other people?

Oho i think i can easily deduce that you are an arrogant obnoxious person from post 50.
Arrogant and obnoxious people get no where in life.
I do not have more time to waste on broken personalities such as yourself , do this world a favor and call a psychiatrist.

[roh]

(Original post by Hopple)
It's having vastly different energy management strategies and muscles to cope that is the most impressive. And yes he's still a great swimmer, but that doesn't stop us from comparing.

No, but I think given Phelps' unreal lactic recovery he may have been able to do it (never tried it because it's non Olympic I guess). I think Phelps is the better all round swimmer but Thorpe's the greatest freestyler ever for me.

[Drewski]

(Original post by The Unique Bloke)
Oho i think i can easily deduce that you are an arrogant obnoxious person from post 50.
Arrogant and obnoxious people get no where in life.
I do not have more time to waste on broken personalities such as yourself , do this world a favor and call a psychiatrist.

An internet persona, perhaps, that develops from time to time. But an accurate representation of real life? Don't be so naive.

And, actually, as much as I (genuinely) wish you were right about arrogant people - because I can assure you in person I'm not and people who know me would agree - it's not realistically the case. They tend to have the self confidence about themselves to plough through life.

[internet tough guy]

(Original post by Slick Fosbury)
Christ the swimmers are coy as.

You're telling me it's fair they can say right. There's 4 seperate ways to swim, so we'll need a medal for each at each distance. And you know what, that's not enough we'll also chuck in a combination of all 4. Because that'll be another load of medals. That's not enough though, not only is it an individual sport they also do team sports since that will be another 4 medals per team.

It's beyond a joke. Phelps is an average world class athlete, the only reason he wins so much is these ridiculous classes.

It's similar to the track stars saying they want medals for backwards 100m, freestyle 100m, skipping 100m and a 1 legged 100m AND then a 100m with 25m of backwards, freestyle, skipped and 1 legged. Then the same athletes competing in all 4.

Completely distorts the medal table.

[Similar outrage at weight classes in boxing, weight lifting etc. Next up we'll have the U60kg 100m, U70kg 100m etc]

Yeah I do find it somewhat odd that they have medals just for different ways of swimming, and I agree that this has led to an unfair inflation of medals count for certain swimmers *cough* phelps *cough*. You don't see them having separate events for different ways of running now do you? If its right for them to have backstroke and breaststroke swimming, why not make sideways running a new event?

[Astronomical]

Personally, I think their should be a 100m for each of the four strokes, then a 200m, 400m, 800m and 1500m freestyle, essentially the same as the running.

The problem with the current swimming events, is, I feel, the distances are too similar, which is why athletes like Phelps are able to win pretty much all of them. It's akin to Usain Bolt winning the majority of the running events. The fact that it's even possible for an athlete to be so successful at all the distances in their discipline it itself a statement that the distances are too similar.

[Manchester United]

This thread is complete rubbish.

The whole point of the olympics is to have the best athletes competing in the selected event. If Phelps, Lochte and Missy Franklin just so happen to be the best in their events (and qualify!), then they are well in their rights of choosing more than 2/3 to enter .

I don't see how increasing, or decreasing, the amount of swimming events affects the table. Everyone is given an opportunity. Look at Rebbeca Adlington, great swimmer, but she can only succeed in freestyle. This proves that different methods of swimming requires different skill sets. Go enter her for backstroke and see how well she does.

In addition to this point, you could say Lochte, Phelps and Franklin are giving others a chance by entering themselves for so many events. Missy Franklin had to qualify for a Semi-final last night, then 15 minutes later she had a final.

Look at the relays. France beat USA the other day (Lochte and Phelps included). But today, USA smashed everyone (including France) by like 3 seconds; without Lochte or Phelps. Why? Because it was a different length/style. Hence, it proves that having these different lengths and distances is fair.

[internet tough guy]

(Original post by KingMessi)
Erm...we do have a similar format in running. 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m, 1500m, 3000m, 5000m, 10000m and a marathon, not to mention a 4 x 100 relay. Regardless, equating running to swimming is a false equivalency as there is only one accepted way to run - forwards, as fast as possible. There are different techniques acceptable in swimming, thus we have different events.

The boxing argument is also a false equivalency. If a 60KG boxer took on a heavyweight, what do you think the end result will be? Reductio ad absurdiums don't help your case either.

Whats an 'acceptable' technique is all rather arbitary isn't it?

Front crawl is the fastest way to swim, yet they decide to create events for other slower techniques? This is no different from sideways running being made an event for runners, or a mixture of forward and sideways running being made into an event with usain bolt cleaning up with 2-4 more gold medals.

[Joinedup]

Not a joke. Unfair though. Phelps gets to be an amazingly higly paid megastar for being the athlete with the greatest number of medals. The previous record was 7 and was also a swimmer.

Redgrave got fame and fortune for winning gold medals in a great number of olympics on the trot, which isn't going to happen in a lot of sports where you're only ever good for one or two games.

[internet tough guy]

(Original post by KingMessi)
So are Bolt's achievements devalued because he's won the 100m, 200m and the 4 x 100 relay? At the end of the day, Bolt would be just as entitled to run in the 400m, 800m and 1500m as Phelps is to take part in every event he's good enough at without having those achievements devalued. He is hardly 'average world class' when he is one of the few swimmers ever to excel at all four disciplines to that extent.

400m, maybe but extremely difficult

800m upwards is impossible for anyone to do to a high enough level while performing short distance sprints at the same time. Have you even seen the difference in physique between usain bolt and mo farah?

[419]

I was thinking this earlier. I does create an unequal playing field. For all ball sport, there's only one medal available whilst all other non-ball sports there's loads.

It does seem somewhat unfair.

[Foghorn Leghorn]

Hmm I reckon OP has a point tbh. I wouldn't say phelps is an average athelet by any stretch of the imgaination, but it does seem a bit ridiulous that with the likes of other sports you do the same work but you only have a chance to win one medal from it.

[Joinedup]

(Original post by internet tough guy)
Whats an 'acceptable' technique is all rather arbitary isn't it?

Front crawl is the fastest way to swim, yet they decide to create events for other slower techniques? This is no different from sideways running being made an event for runners, or a mixture of forward and sideways running being made into an event with usain bolt cleaning up with 2-4 more gold medals.

fascinating fact the butterfly started out in the breast stroke competition and they split it into a separate event so they'd have a continuity in the recognisable breast stroke competition... i guess they had some idea about the games being an exhibition of approved strokes? I Suppose the track and field analogy would be having forward and backward high jump when the technique there was revolutionised. Course in that instance they decided to keep the hj about just getting over the highest bar.

[Hopple]

(Original post by Joinedup)
fascinating fact the butterfly started out in the breast stroke competition and they split it into a separate event so they'd have a continuity in the recognisable breast stroke competition... i guess they had some idea about the games being an exhibition of approved strokes? I Suppose the track and field analogy would be having forward and backward high jump when the technique there was revolutionised. Course in that instance they decided to keep the hj about just getting over the highest bar.

I think they should have a high jump where you have to be able to run off afterwards, kind of like hurdles. The high jump's only good practice for running through people's gardens if you haven't landed flat on your back after the first fence.

Did you see that thing on the butterfly coming from breaststroke on that BBC documentary?

[RtGOAT]

They should also make men and women compete together

[DaveSmith99]

If we have events for slower swimming techniques I see no reason for not having a 100m hopping race, or a 100m roly poly race.

[Converse Rocker]

(Original post by RtGOAT)
They should also make men and women compete together

Why exactly? Men are, on the whole, naturally stronger and taller than women. You only have to look at the World records for each gender in the same event and see why we separate them out.

[explicit4u]

(Original post by RtGOAT)
They should also make men and women compete together

Pretty much all Olympic sports separate men and women why should swimming be any different?

Men's 100m Backstroke world record: 51.94
Women's 100m Backstroke world record: 58.12

Men's 200m freestyle world record: 1:45.00
Women's 200m freestyle world record: 1:52.98

In the Men's 100m backstroke heats the slowest time was 58.77s whereas in the Women's heats the fastest time was 58.23 and that was an Olympic record.

There's just too much of a gap between the genders for them to compete against each other.