Aight, I’ll get into the foray of slinging opinions that will answer once and for all who the greatest Olympian is.
We must first focus on the “Olympic ideal” that they keep telling us about where a human pushes him or herself to physical feats of speed and strength in whatever endeavor they choose or lead to do, based on their amazing genetics. To also compete cleanly, with integrity, with respect for one’s opponents / fellow competitors.
Michael Phelps has, last count I believe 26 medals where 20 of them are gold. Based on those numbers there will never be a better Olympian! He has more gold medals than a few countries combined, in the history of the Olympics. He must then be the greatest?
We can argue that the nature of swimming does lend itself to multiple events based on their training of swimming THOUSANDS of laps in their careers so the swim a 50, or a 100 or a 200 or a 400 happens almost daily at any swim club anywhere in the world, so a good rest, stretching and a quick booster meal between swims can have an athlete compete in heats and finals on the same day.
Competing is fine yet to go on to win race after race, gold medal after gold medal, year after year makes Michael far more amazing than the competition or even other Olympians. Michael Phelps is utterly unique!
Yet the most amazing swimming feat to this day for me is Mark Spitz! He won 7 gold medals in one Olympic games! An unheard of amount at that time and it wasn’t a plan like they have done with Phelps’s career. Michael still has to train, sacrifice training time, swim heats to qualify, then still go out and win races for 12 years in a row! 26 medals later! Yet when Spitz did it was so wondrous for so many years after. It was a miracle what Mark Spitz accomplished! It still feels like that today.
And what about that humility that Michael displays? It does point to a great Olympian in so many of his accomplishments as well as his personal demeanor. Yes he had some issues, smoked herb (which is SO fine with me) which bothered those who put this Olympian up on a pedestal that any contact with marijuana diminishes the Olympic sheen. Whatever!
Usain Bolt!
Had to start the paragraph like that! Just his name. He takes your breath away! His accomplishments seem herculean from his teen years as a junior runner to now this grown man, three Olympics in.
The games when Michael won his 8 gold medals to beat Mark Spitz’s record Bolt ran ONE race and we talked about it for the rest of that Olympics and even today. The planet stopped when Bolt ran! The 100m sprint, track finalist is like the Heavyweight Champion used to be viewed back in the day. Jesse Owens was as significant and as important as Joe Louis or Muhammed Ali. He not only won, he smashed the world record and his Olympic Bolt Stance went viral!
Jacque Rogge the past racist head of the IOC detested Bolt and his Lightning Bolt stance. What Rogge should look at are the statues and paintings of Apollo who is the ‘god’ of the Olympiad. He might recognize that pulling of an arrow motion. Even to this day, with the exploits of Abebe Bikila (ran the entire marathon barefooted and WON) till now with the dominance of the distance races by the African nations and the sprints by black athletes, the Olympics are a white supremist event and people like Jacque Rogge are great reminders of that ideology.
The weekend of sprints and track events has always been the marquee events of the games, especially the 100m dash as they used to call it. A dash! Ten seconds and less! Way less with Mr. Bolt running! A fierce and successful competitor, almost everyone wants Usain to win. The track world is a brighter place with his presence. He is certainly there to compete and to win yet his aura makes the games more thrilling for all viewing.
He has been tested and passed them all in the most emphatic manner, on the biggest stage. Which Olympian could have been better? Is he greater than Spitz or Phelps because he is more popular?
Then I started to take a look at the Olympics and the World Cup of football (soccer) and I realized that they are the world’s greatest exploiters of humanity. Especially the current Olympiad and the past World Cup in Brazil. Brazilian governments from the dawn of time are renowned racist ‘leaders’ for what they do to the people of the favelas. Supposedly their own people. For decades, for centuries!
The “Olympic Ideal” is about oppression!
As a youth I was programmed to believe the Olympic Champion had his or her moment to “stand with the gods” by their accomplishments, true merit and a higher standard than the rest of us mortals, so most over the years have been revered as such, based on the programming that has been forced on us.
Who is the greatest Olympian? Bolt or Phelps? None!
Their idea of the Olympic Ideals may have been a propaganda schpeal but my ideals don’t change. It is about humanity and morality. I cannot in good conscience celebrate any of their feats when city after city, each Olympiad has put dollars in the pocket of these oppressors, using Olympic heroes to distract as they exploit and murder.
*No Olympian is a good Olympian! They are all crap! These or any games do not distract me from the blood, shed on the ground by black people in the favelas.
This is not a personal knock on all who have participated in any Olympic games. I wished that I was gifted enough to have represented Jamaica or Canada in the sprints. That was always a dream of mine. Which is why to this day I watch the 100m men’s final. I wished for a few seconds that I was Don Quarrie, Lennox Miller, Ben Johnson, Donovan Bailey or Usain Bolt. I have developed a love and reverence for these athletes and others like Franz Klammer, Muhammed Ali, Wilma Rudolph, Victor Davis and Alex Bauman, Michael Phelps, Jessie Owens, Abebe Bikila, Mo Farrah, Valerie Alexiev (sp). The list is endless!
But now that I know that it was created on the blood of black people, I choose no “great” Olympian.
One of my “heroes”, “Olympic gods” with the morality and integrity of the gods should have spoken up for the weak and disenfranchised. The corruption in FIFA and the IOC is well documented and well known.
The Olympian that stands up for the masses is the greatest one in my opinion. None measure up!
* Not meant as a personal attack on any specific athlete.