The Greatest Olympian

I talked a little last week about the ridiculous obsession our culture has with labeling and ranking everything. We do it with art, like films, TV, music, and paintings, that is all too subjective. We do it with people too. Almost every event has to be quantified by the media and talking heads so that we feel better about our world. We are a people that crave order, and as such can never let things just reside in the moment.

I, of course, am guilty of this too. But this idea struck me a lot last week as Michael Phelps, presumably, wrapped up his Olympic career. The fact that he is the most prolific swimmer and most decorated Olympian of all time are not in dispute. But that led to a mass overreaction of all media to try and define his place in history before he'd had a chance to towel off from his last race. That's where it gets tricky.

We live in a different era in sports. The United States is a dominating force in the Olympics, and has been for the past few contests. There are no giants, the was the U.S.S.R. was, or countries that are on the same developmental level as the United States. We pour more money into athletics, it's a bigger part of our culture, and we are more concerned with being the best than most of the rest of the world. That adds context to this process.

The Olympics has always been an acid test of athletics. It comes only once every four years, so the window for greatness is small. But training improvements, nutritional plans, and the like have made it so that athletes today can go longer and achieve greater results than in eras past.

That, of course, makes it even more difficult to quantify events. I liken it to the top grossing films. Given the ticket prices today, it's easier than ever to hit $100 million. That's no longer the gold standard that it was in the 1970s and 1980s. Now its a bit passe. So it's hard to measure, dollar for dollar, a movie like "The Avengers" with "Star Wars." Both made great money, but how do you rank them in the pantheon of all-time films based on their grosses alone? They come from different eras, so those dollar amounts mean different things.

Of course, Phelps leads to another quandary in ranking too. He is a swimmer. He can easily be ranked against other swimmers, but when you talk about the best Olympic athlete ever, you are ranking him across other sports and disciplines. The fact is that an elite swimmer has more opportunities to collect medals than an elite athlete on the track. The same runner can't usually dominate the 100, 200, 400, and 800-meter. Nor are they likely to be able to dominate the 100 and the 110-meter hurdles.

Of course, you could say the same about swimming disciplines too. That, of course, is part of what makes Phelps great. But, still, there is more crossover. There is likely not another Olympic sport that would afford an athlete a chance to compete in eight medal finals, so who else could win eight gold medals.

That being said, we need to appreciate Phelps for the great champion he is. It doesn't matter who the greatest Olympian is, it matters that you'll be able to tell your kids you watched Phelps race live. That is the magic of sports — it creates these beautiful moments that are yours to hold forever and to share. And Phelps has brought a lot of magic over the past three Olympics.

What he did in Beijing was legendary, but I think what he's done in London is, perhaps, even more magical. He has admitted that he didn't train the way he should have and that caused him to get the results he deserved. He is a great champion who came out and fell flat on his face in his first three races. He failed to medal in the 400 IM, saw his team beat at the line in the 4X100 relay, and was clipped at the end in the 200 Fly, one of his signature events.

For some athletes, that would have been an excuse to pack it in. Not for Phelps. He came out stronger, harder, and faster. He earned four gold medals — two in individual events — to close out his Olympic career on his terms. And he remained gracious, humble, and honest in all his interviews along the way. That is the heart of a champion, and I am blessed to have been a witness.

It doesn't matter if he is the best Olympic athlete of all time. I'm not even sure we have the proper metric to quantify that. What matters is he is a great champion, and he is the only Michael Phelps we'll ever see.

...That is unless this whole cloning thing works out.