Michael Phelps - Better than Ian Thorpe ?

[GotSpin]

Perhaps im biased because Thorpe is Australian, but i always thought he had this aura of invincibility that surrounded him, while, in the races that Phelps won, often they were very close.

 

[sanga1337]

Perhaps im biased because Thorpe is Australian, but i always thought he had this aura of invincibility that surrounded him, while, in the races that Phelps won, often they were very close.

Some of them were, but there were others where he absolutely killed the competition as well.

 

[Spinksy]

Some of them were, but there were others where he absolutely killed the competition as well.

Agree, Thorpe to me seem great though, he'd cop it sweet and move on. Whereas Phelps just seems up himself it you know what I mean. He really wants to be known.

 

[_Ed_]

I don't agree with that at all, Phelps seems surprisingly down to earth to me. Remember he never mentioned the possibility of eight golds before the Games started, all the excitement over that was built by the media.

 

[vic_orthdox]

It was really weird when Thorpe started racing in the 100m, because he was winning by tiny amounts (if at all), as opposed to seeing him in the 200m and 400m where it was usually much more comfortable.

 

[mars]

It was really weird when Thorpe started racing in the 100m, because he was winning by tiny amounts (if at all), as opposed to seeing him in the 200m and 400m where it was usually much more comfortable.

Thorpe wasn't a sprinter. He was a very good middle distance freestyler. And he didn't really swim any of the other strokes. He did swim the 200m medley at the Worlds in 2003, but he got destroyed by Phelps and dropped it from his program.

I vote Phelps because of his incredible versatility. He has set World Records in freestyle, butterfly and medley races. In addition to the races he swam at the Olympics, he would be very competitive in the 100m/200m backstroke and 100m/400m freestyle races. I believe he said he will now be racing new events (what else is there for him to accomplish?); I am very interested in seeing how he does.

As for his "margin of victory," true, there were two races that were very close, but I don't think it's realistic to expect someone to totally dominate their competition in every race when they enter 8 events. All swimming events have specialists who train and taper/are well rested for the one/two events they swim. Phelps, on the other hand, had to train across many distances and all strokes to win the races he did and fatigue had to be a factor when racing 17 races (including heats and semis) in 9 days. IMO, what he accomplished was incredible, much moreso than Spitz's 7 golds, as Spitz didn't have to swim semis and the competition was much weaker in his era.