His accomplishments got overshadowed by the greatest moment in country's sports history. But I'd argue that Heiden had the greatest single games of all.

An American baby is probably already born who will 10 swimming golds at a single games(or at least 8 gold + 2 other medals). Phelps himself was an amazing at back stroke but chose not to race at the games. Back, butterfly, and freestyle with the relays will get the job done.

A baby somewhere is already born who might take the 100m, 200, and 400m sprint medals (plus both relays if American or Caribbean) in our lifetime and therefore pass Usain Bolt.

But as I watch the current athlete speed skate I'm certain that no man will ever win the 500m, 1000m, 1500m, 5000m, 10000m speed skating golds in one games (no one will win medals in all either)

For me he's level with Jesse Owens as the greatest Olympian of all time. What does Texags think?

Emil Zatopek
Set OR in the 5k, 10k, and marathon in the 1952 Olympics. That will never be attempted again. Oh and that was his first marathon race.

I agree Heiden is one of the best. But you don't understand Phelps. He was not the best at backstroke although he was world class. I don't believe he ever held the world record in a backstroke event. Phelps is not just the most decorated Olympian, he was/is the greatest male swimmer in history. He is an elite swimmer in three strokes - butterfly, freestyle, and backstroke. The few times he raced breaststroke he was near elite level. And that versatility resulted in his status as the best individual medley swimmer. Finally Phelps did his thing at four Olympics - starting when he was 15.

No swimmer has excelled in a single stroke like Heiden. Freestyle races at 50, 100, 200, 400, and 1500 meters. No one has ever won all of those. But physiologically that would be nearly impossible since the 50 is a pure anerobic event race that takes 21 seconds and the 1500M takes 14 minutes. Heiden's ability to win both a sprint (500M and the 10,000M) was extraordinary.

No runner is capable of winning the 100, 200, 400, 1500, and 5000. Usain Bolt would be a quarter lap or more behind the winner of a 1500M race.

[This message has been edited by SpicewoodAg (edited 2/10/2014 8:08a).]

Heiden was impressive for sure... but, it is difficult to compare across sports, IMO.

I always get Heiden confused with Dan Jansen, whose Olympic skating experience was gut-wrenching.

Seems like the Dutch have had a couple skaters with large medal counts... there was a female, IIRC.

I believe Koss set WRs in all 3 events.

The reason they are hard to compare... IMO, in skating, there is a dependency on equipment. Skates and changes in skates makes it almost impossible to compare. Not all skaters have the same skates. I don't know enough of skating to understand how sharpness, deptch, etc, create advantage\disadvantage.

I am biased towards swimming... I'm actively involved in USA-S.

You also can't compare because there are over 350,000 swimmers in USA-S. I can't find how many athletes are in US Speed Skating. But the level of competition and the number of members is huge.

7 of the 8 Golds Phelps took in 2008 were WRs. Spitz won his 7 Gold all with WRs, as well.

The number of events provides a distinction between pure medals won and the impressiveness of the accomplishment. Heiden may not be broken because of how specialized skating has become. The more competition enters a sport... the more specialized it has the tendency.

There are only 51 athletes who have more medals (8+) in their career. 19 of those are Gymnasts. 12 are swimmers. Phelps did that in 1 Olympics.

Larisa Latynina took 6 medals (4 G, 2 S) in Gymnastics - 1956.

Paavo Nurmi won 5 G in 1924 in running.

The advantage Phelps (and Spitz for that matter) had was he was a great Fly. Being "THE BEST" Fly gave him advantage in the 100Fly, 200Fly, 200IM, 400IM and the 4x100 Medley relay. Spitz also won the 100Fly, 200Fly, 4x100 Medley relay.

I love speed skating. I love the rhythm, the power, and the precision. It has no music, no judges; it is man against man.

But there can't be more than a few hundred or thousand in the US that compete in speed skating. How many are in the US Olympic Trials? And worldwide there are not many. A once in a generation competitor like Heiden doesn't have to beat great athletes from many dozens of countries and many thousands of elite competitors.

Even if you forget about gold medals, Phelps was the fastest butterfly swimmer in the world for 8-12 years. He was the fastest 200 free swimmer for a long time. He was the best IM swimmer for 8-12 years. He was top 8 in the world in 100 free. Probably would have been top 8 in backstroke, though he didn't compete it at the Olympics.

I love speed skating, as well.

Not to make this a swimming vs speed skating...but some perspective.

There are 71 Skating Clubs

None of which are in Texas... 5 in California... 1 in Florida.

There are 29+/- Swim Clubs in North Texas. About 3,000 Nationally. The larger clubs in NT have 500-600+ members.

That doesn't make Heiden's accomplishment any less... but signal how difficult it is to compare the two and how incredibly competitive it was for Phelps to do what he did.

[This message has been edited by DallasAg 94 (edited 2/10/2014 11:31a).]

And continuing with that logic, of more accomplishment based on worldwide participation, I hereby present the greatest athlete in Olympic History: [insert name of some soccer player]

In seriousness, I agree with how hard it is to compare across sports. You have difference competition pools, number of Olympic opportunities to medal, sports where your body can continue to compete at a higher level longer, even timing of your age to the 4 year cycle (if that Russian figure skater was just two months younger hardly anyone would have heard of her for another 4 years), etc. It is pretty impossible to answer that question in any type of objective manner.

A whole bunch of figure skaters are earning an additional medal this year with a team comp. Just think how many more medals some of them would have if they gave out separate medals for the short and free program instead of combining into one. Or if we shortened basketball to two 10 minutes halves and had a 5 on 5, 3 on 3, 1 on 1, and a slam dunk contest.


(Also, a bunch of the speed skaters came from inline skating clubs so you should probably include those at the least if you are doing a comparison).

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And continuing with that logic, of more accomplishment based on worldwide participation, I hereby present the greatest athlete in Olympic History: [insert name of some soccer player]

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And that would be relevant to a discussion about comparing the rarity of medaling based on sport participation. Being on a team... you would still need to average the number of actual medals per participant. We can talk about the individual contribution as we transcend each Olympic comparison.

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In seriousness, I agree with how hard it is to compare across sports. You have difference competition pools, number of Olympic opportunities to medal, sports where your body can continue to compete at a higher level longer, even timing of your age to the 4 year cycle (if that Russian figure skater was just two months younger hardly anyone would have heard of her for another 4 years), etc. It is pretty impossible to answer that question in any type of objective manner.

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I agree...

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A whole bunch of figure skaters are earning an additional medal this year with a team comp. Just think how many more medals some of them would have if they gave out separate medals for the short and free program instead of combining into one.

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I think the Winter Olympics is looking for ways to expand the number of events. We can argue whether figure skating is really a sport.

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Or if we shortened basketball to two 10 minutes halves and had a 5 on 5, 3 on 3, 1 on 1, and a slam dunk contest.

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And then we can make up events. And then, we can medal for Quarter and Semi finals, as well... we could just give medals to everyone. Let's have a Copper Medal and add a 4th...

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(Also, a bunch of the speed skaters came from inline skating clubs so you should probably include those at the least if you are doing a comparison).

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I absolutely believe we should count speed skaters that have transitioned over from inline. Why not just include everyone that has ever bought a skateboard, skates or even a surfboard.

And then we can add everyone who has purchased a swim suit, has owned a pool, or has gone to a public pool.

I know there's no correct answer as to who's the greatest. But sharing your opinion with other Ags in what Texags is about. And the opinion that we can't possibly know who's greatest is solid one; thanks for contributing to the thread.

On the Phelps vs. Heiden debate, Phelps gets credit for being in what is the most diverse sport in the world. Look at the continents and ethnic groups covered at the London games. Looking back at his 2008 performance is all the more impressive.
Speedskating is bigger than the number of clubs suggest. MANY inliners are making the move (even from Texas like Chad Hedrick), but I don't think this was the case in 1980. Also none of the East Asian countries had gotten into the Winter games competitively. In he had done it in 2010, I'd give him more credit for winning against diverse competition.

Where Heiden gets more credit than Phelps is in that all 5 golds were individual. Phelps gets the advantage of being on the relay team of the greatest swim team in world history. He carried the 4X200. But I won't ever forget that ridiculous Lezak close on the 4X100 free. And the 4X100 medley relay is formality. America has so much swimming depth, that it OWNS this event. If any country wants to make a statement about their power at the Olympics, THIS is the event to beat us at (even more so than basketball). The relays and the strength of the team are part of the reason I think some current American baby will win 10 swimming golds in our lifetime.

I don't think any swimmer will win 10 golds. The swimmer would have to win 7 individual golds and be on all three gold medal relays.

To win 7 individual golds, the swimmer would have be world's best in at least two strokes (win the 100 and 200 of each), plus world's best in at least one IM distance and be a great freestyle swimmer.

It won't be someone that is a breaststroke swimmer. There are no breaststroke swimmers that are world class at freestyle or backstroke. All of the great breaststroke swimmers are specialists. Kitajima, Hansen, etc.

So to win 7 individual golds, the swimmer would realistically have to be world's fastest in 3 events. The other issue is that the swimmer would have to race prelims, semis, and finals in any event shorter than 400M. They'd get a pass into finals on the relays. But they would race (for example) six times for backstroke, six times for fly, three times for 200 IM, three times for 200 free, three times for 100 free, and three relays. That is 22 races over eight days. No one can endure that much racing.

It wasn't so much that we were trying to say don't bother to have fun debating something that can't have a definitive answer as we were trying to say that many of the determining factors that were used in this thread are rather limiting. There are really only a small portion of Olympic sports that the best athletic Olympian can come from if we are using number of medals or winning multiple events at a single games as the criteria for best.

Depending on how far you want to go back in Olympic history, I would say Eric Heiden for the more modern Olympics and for the earlier Olympics I would go with Jim Thorpe. Overall, I would give my vote to Jim Thorpe as the greatest athletic in Olympic history.

Once you constrain the comparison to Olympic athletes then you are forced to accept the limitations of the Olympic format. Swimming has lots of events. Speed skating has five. Track and field has lots. Soccer is a team sport. And so on.

Jim Thorpe's achievements are interesting to evaluate. No doubt he was an extremely versatile athlete. Yet when he won the decathlon - the US cancelled Olympic trials because there were too few competitors. He competed in just one Olympics - 1912.

What about this wrinkle... do either of these things sway thoughts or opinion:

1) The way Olympics are funded and the inclusion of paid\sponsored athletes.

2) The fall of USSR?!

3) Unification of Germany?!

My first job out of college was with Oscar Mayer in Madison, Wisconsin way back in June 1981. One of my co-workers knew Eric as they were both from Madison and essentially the same age. He said Eric was a training freak...that when everyone was partying late or sleeping in on the weekend, Heiden was training. I believe he's now an M.D.