Reasons Why Michael Phelps Is A Certified GOAT
There has always been a lot of debate about who the greatest sportsperson is. There are the prominent names that are at the top of the conversation. Those names are the likes of Michael Jordan and Tom Brady.
There are a lot of athletes that should be at the top of the list. Yet, there is one name that should be up there. That name is swimmer and multiple-time Olympian Michael Phelps. He dominated the sport of swimming for many years, which means he should be right up there.
What has Phelps has achieved?
Phelps is a 38-year-old swimmer from Baltimore, he competed in his first Olympics at the 2000 games in Sydney. This feat is impressive because Phelps was 15 at the time. He finished his first final in fifth place, which was a glimpse into his dominance in the years to come. Four years later, his reign started in the 2004 Athens Olympics, where the American won eight medals.
Breaking down the medals, he won eight gold and two bronze medals. The highlight of his 2004 games was breaking the Olympic record in the 200-metre butterfly. The 2008 Olympics in Beijing was the peak of Phelps's power. He won gold medals in the eight events that he entered. In seven of those eight events, he broke the world record.
The Olympics in London was his third time at the competition. Which means he was going into these games as an experience Olympian. His six medals illustrated this, four of them being gold. The Rio 2016 games marked his final Olympics. He went off in style by winning five gold medals and one silver. An interesting point to make is that Phelps, at one point, had more medals than 179 countries.
How does he compare to others?
When deciding about what makes someone one of the greats in sport, you must think about how dominant they were in their prime. The Olympian’s performance in Beijing says it all when applying this to Phelps' career. As previously stated, he won gold medals in all the events he entered. It is hard enough to win one gold medal, let alone eight.
This dominance in the Olympics will likely never happen again. This feat could not be replicated in any other sport because there is no sporting competition like the Olympics. The second factor is the duration of an athlete's ability to compete at the top level. Phelps competed at a high level for a very long time. The evidence for this is that he made his Olympic debut in the 2000 Games, and his last Olympics was in 2016. Hence Phelps was at the top of his game for 16 years. A big reason he is not at the top of people's lists is that swimming isn't a very mainstream sport, which means that athletes who compete in sports like football, basketball, or boxing will get more recognition for their achievements.
Phelps, without a shadow of a doubt, is one of the most outstanding swimmers and athletes in general. Yet, not enough people know about his achievements because only a few eyes watch swimming compared to other sports.
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