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<p>You’re stupid. You think you can swim 100km?</p>
<p>Anyone in the world will tell you that swimming 100km is more difficult than running 100km, it’s probably impossible. Wait, but hey, if being in the water is easier on your body than swimming is then shouldn’t it be easier?</p>
<p>I think Phelps can make a case for greatest athlete ever, but so can dozens (literaly) of other athletes. Here are a few and I invite all of you to list some of your own:</p>
<p>AMERICAN FOOTBALL
Tom Brady (assuming he wins one more Super Bowl!)
Jim Brown
Dick Butkus
John Elway
Joe Greene
Joe Montana
Walter Payton
Jerry Rice
Barry Sanders
Lawrence Taylor
Johnny Unitas
Reggie White</p>
<p>BASEBALL
Not my sport, perhaps some of you can fill this one in</p>
<p>BASKETBALL
Kareem Abdul Jabbar
Larry Bird
Kobe Bryant
Wilt Chamberlain
Tim Duncan
LeBron James
Magic Johnson
Michael Jordan
Bill Russell</p>
<p>BOXING
Mohammad Ali
Joe Lewis
Rocky Marciano
Sugar Ray Robinson</p>
<p>FOOTBALL
Beckenbauer
Cantona
Maradona
Pele
Platini
Renaldo
Van Basten
Zidane</p>
<p>FORMULA I RACING
Alain Prost
Michael Schumacher
Ayrton Senna</p>
<p>GOLF
Ben Hogan
Jack Nicklaus
Arnold Palmer
Tiger Woods</p>
<p>GYMNASTICS
Nikolai Andrianov
Nadia Comaneci
Sawao Kato
Svetlana Khorkina
Larissa Latynina
Shannon Miller
Mary Lou Retton</p>
<p>HOCKEY
Wayne Gretzky
Gorgie Howe
Bobby Hull
Mario Lemieux
Mark Messier</p>
<p>SWIMMING
Matt Biondi
Michael Phelps
Mark Spitz
Ian Thorpe
Johnny Weissmuller</p>
<p>TENNIS
Andre Agassi
Bjorn Borg
Jimmy Connors
Chris Evert
Roger Federer
Steffi Graf
Billy Jean King
Rod Laver
Ivan Lendl
John McEnroe
Martina Navratilova
Peter Sampras</p>
<p>TRACK AND FIELD
Michael Johnson
Carl Lewis
Jesse Owens
Marie Jose Perec</p>
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<p>That’s because you don’t drown in asphalt if you stop running.</p>
<p>respekt…</p>
<p>I meant defines a generation FOR HIS SPORT, sorry, should have said that more explicitly, and I don’t think you can call that a stretch.</p>
<p>^ alexandre. for track & field, i believe you forgot Steve Prefontaine, who, in my opinion, is the greatest distance runner.</p>
<p>^As much I hate to disagree with you (and trust me I really do because I love Pre too), he is not the greatest runner ever. </p>
<p>And oh my god, did anyone here see Usain Bolt? As, i wanna be brown mentioned, that was an incredible performance. I don’t think he could’ve gone sub 9.6, but he would’ve been really close. The man is unreal. He even through in a little chest thump and the race wasn’t even over.</p>
<p>he stopped running with ~18m left, had he kept running a sub 9.6 would have been a very good possibility.</p>
<p>he basically made that 100m his *****</p>
<p>6’5", 200 LBS, 9.69 second 100 meters, 21 years old…NFL WR much?!</p>
<p>just because he’s fast doesn’t mean he has to have hands, or be able to break tackles, or do anything other than be fast</p>
<p>Very true, but I would think some NFL teams will at least try. That kind of speed and size is hard to find.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t even say he is the greatest olympian ever…possibly the greatest olympian swimmer…everyone keeps saying how he’s the only athlete to ever win eight gold medals…but there aren’t many sports other than swimming and gymnastics in the olympics where athletes can compete in so many events at once…someone who wins gold running in a marathon can’t come back and compete again right after that…</p>
<p>don’t get me wrong, I LOVE phelps and he’s currently the best olympian swimmer and its a huge deal he won so many medals…just shouldn’t be compared to other types of athletes in the olympics for the reasons i stated above.</p>
<p>there’s my 2 cents…kinda long winded…</p>
<p>and tunit, Steve Prefontaine is def. the best distance runner ever</p>
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<p>there’s no 100km in running anyway. But it’s possible to swim 100km. Haven’t you seen people swimming from Cuba to Florida? There are so many people fleeing on boats during the war and their boats got wrecked and they swam for days to nearby countries (with objects and people on).</p>
<p>also, “easier on your body” does not necessarily mean “less tiring.”</p>
<p>The point people are tying to make is: how often do you read about swimmers hurting themselves in the pool? how often do you hear about runners hurting themselves on the track?</p>
<p>There are many ways to assess greatness in sports, but with respect to Olympic performances I consider Eric Heiden’s domination of his sport (speedskating) in the 1980 Winter games to be superior to Phelps’s. Heiden won every event in his sport, from the sprinter 500 m to the endurance 10000 m. It was pretty clear that no one in the world could beat him at any distance. And he didn’t have relays to pad his medal total.</p>