What more can be said about Michael Phelps? He is, by far, the greatest American athlete that has ever lived. From the age of 15 until the age of 31, he made more marks in Summer Olympic history than anyone else on the planet. He competed in 5 Summer Olympic events. He won more medals than anyone in history. He IS history, a living legend. With August 13th, 2016 being his potential last appearance in Olympic events, let's recap some of the standout statistics from Phelps with an illustration:
Need a little more? Here you go:
From bottom to top:
- 2 Bronze, 6 Gold, totaling 8 Olympic Medals from the 2004 Olympics in Athens, Greece (He broke 2 World Records and 3 Olympic Records)
- 8 Gold Medals from the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China (He broke 7 World records and 1 Olympic Record)
- 2 Silver and 4 Gold Medals from the 2012 Olympics in London, England
- 1 Silver and 5 Gold Medals from 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (He broke an Olympic Record)
Now that is crazy, insane, bananas, etc. Call it what you will, the point is: Michael Phelps is the greatest athlete to compete in any sporting event, PERIOD! If his swimming career is over after the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, then he will go down in history with these record breaking statistics as well:
- He broke Leonidas of Rhodes' record set in 152 B.C. of winning Gold in 12 individual titles at the Olympics. Phelps won 13 individual events for Olympic Gold Medals.
- He reached the finals in 30 Olympic Events earning 28 Olympic Medals in those finals.
- His 28 Olympic Medals and 23 Gold Medals are an Olympic record.
- He's the 1st Olympian to earn an Olympic Gold Medal in 4 straight Olympic Games.
- The 23 Gold medals he has are 14 more than anyone else has won.
- Phelps broke Mark Spitz's record for most Gold Medals in a single Olympic event in 2008 with 8 1st place finishes to Spitz's 7.
- Michael Phelps has won more Gold Medals (23) than over 100 countries and would be the 32nd ranked country (if Phelps was a country) among all-time Gold Medal winners.
Need anything else?! Now that's what I call G.O.A.T. status. When you can boast those stats and start a country, I mean come on! However, Yahoo Sports writer Frank Schwab thinks that he is NOT the greatest American athlete of all time. Schwab says it's because athletes like Michael Jordan, Jerry Rice and Babe Ruth all had to play their respective sports against some kind of defense. Schwab also hinted that there is no defense for Michael Phelps in the sport of swimming.
Now let me tell you what I would say to Schwab if he were standing in front of me:
- I would tell him that he is simply a journalist that refuses to acknowledge the greatness he just witnessed and his defense argument is weak, at best.
- He was reaching, clawing for a way to write a negative article disputing what every American already knows: Michael Phelps just made WORLD sports history, not just American.
- That he was writing a fluff piece just to get his name out there as "The Guy That Disputed Phelps".
What about the other swimmers in the pool? They swim beside him, gaining on him, which makes him swim harder, right? Well if I was playing football as Jerry Rice and the DB was right beside me, I would run a little faster to gain an advantage and catch the ball, right? And, in comparison, the catching of a football is the same as the stride of a swimmer: both must be perfect in order to complete your goal. That, to me, is playing against defense.
The same thing can be said about Michael Jordan and playing basketball. He would have to dribble up the court faster to beat his opponent and making the shot is the same as the stride of a swimmer and the catching of a football by comparison, right? I'm not even going to acknowledge that baseball has a "defensive" aspect if you're Babe Ruth swinging a bat. It is only if your team is playing defense, if you are the defenseman, that there is defense in baseball. Nobody has ever tried to swat a baseball away from a batter. (Last time I checked anyway) Frank Schwab's argument is soft. It's fluffy and has no weight. It's a dust-in-the-wind statement made toward the greatest American athlete, or world athlete, we may see for another 2,000 years. Click here for a link to his "story" if you want to hear him out: sports.yahoo.com/news/the-biggest-reason-michael-phelps-is-not-the-greatest-athlete-ever-171803346.html
People, we have just witnessed history, make no mistake about it. We will be telling our children, our grandchildren and maybe even our great-grandchildren (if we're lucky) about Michael Phelps and how we watched him perform live. How we watched him break the records he broke for over a decade. How we watched him represent the United States of America in a foreign land and get a standing ovation from the crowd while he received his last Gold Medal.
After standing on the podium for the last time, he was quoted, saying "My swimming career might be over, but I have the future ahead of me." If this is the end of his swimming career, I say to the American icon named Michael Phelps God bless and have a fun ride. Life is short, but your legacy lives forever despite what the Frank Schwab's in the world might say. Above all, I say thank you for one more Olympic outing that rewrote history and made the world drop its jaw in respect. And thank you Michael Phelps for showing the world that an American was the best.
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