Is that true? Did he win all of his heats?

I find it interesting that the American media are all flipping out about gymnastics scoring, but I haven't heard a think about the possibility of doping and how some countries don't have very strict controls and that there are plenty of substances used that can't be detected. It's all over the German media. Am I just cynical to think that that modern drugs and technology must have something to do with the extent of these amazing feats in the modern world. By the way, I'm still a Mark Spitz fan. The boy had some hair on his head and no high-tech suit. I think Michael Phelps is amazing, too, just not necessarily "greater" than Spitz. Why do we always have to measure these things. They're both fantastic.

I respect yer feelings, and all that, Gary, but before you start talking about the greatest feats of athletic history, you might want to consider just what Eddy Merckx did in 1972: Set the hour-record on a track in Mexico city after racing a full, professional season (and winning the Tour, the Giro, and the four european classics..not placing, *winning* them.).

And this after his disasterous motor-pace crash at the end of 1969, in which he was badly injured. The fact that he came back at all is something of a miracle. The fact that he came back the way he did makes Bolt's achievement look--not to put too fine a point on it--rather ordinary.

I admired Bolt's wins too. But let's keep some perspective here, shall we?

You could make an argument that Merckx's entire career places him at the very top of the athletic heap, in this, or any, time.

When the history is written, 1000 years from now, Bolt will be there somewhere. But Merckx? He'll still be a god.

Lance Armstrong's total domination of the Tour de France, an event taking place over 22 days and involving hundreds of miles of climbing over mountains and careering down narrow mountain roads at speeds of 70+ mph makes Bolt's 10 or 20 seconds of speedy running a joke.

The guy runs fast. Guess what? All of his records will be broken . . . probably within 10 years. When Mr. X breaks his record, will that be the greatest individual athletic feat of our time? Not to mention Mr. 8-gold-medal Phelps.

Jebus Freaks, man, put your left hand in your right hand and get a friggin' grip.

Lance Armstrong.

Kamiya states in his article that he doesn't have any "really good arguments" for his claim that Bolt's 200 meter gold medal performance was "the greatest individual athletic performance of our time", and I would like to second that opinion. Bolt beat the world record by a mere .02 seconds. Does this mean that Michael Johnson's 19.32 second 200 meter run was the second greatest individual athletic performance of our time? And Kamiya's argument that Bolt's "ludicrous .66 second" margin of victory reinforced the greatness of Bolt's performance is simply silly. I could win a 200 meter dash by a far larger margin if I faced an appropriately weaker field. How in the world can the performance of the other athletes be relevant to Bolt's achievement? If he had still run a 19.30 second race but only won by a few hundredths of a second, does Kamiya think that this would have detracted from Bolt's impressive accomplishment?

I must be a bad person because I don't care one molecule about the Olympics. So some guy can run really really fast. And?

To compare his feat -- which is, after all, a personal quest for his personal best, in pursuit of fame and glory -- to anything done by Shakespeare or Newton is insane. I can only hope, Gary, that you're being hyperbolic.

after a bit of surfing, I found a post at Calirado Cyclist, from one *Sebastian* that really puts Merckx's miracle year in perspective:

"The Merckx stat that kills me is the fact that he actually set the 10k, 20k, and Hour records DURING THE SAME RIDE. That's like some Olympic track star establishing world records in the 800, the 1600, and the Marathon all in one go. Unbef#%kinglievable. I think that in fact his 1k split is still the fastest of any Hour Record attempt -- faster than Indurain, Rominger, Boardman. His Hour mark probably would have outlasted Moser if he'd just been sensible and tackled one record at a time."

Usain Bolt's effort last night was admirable and exciting. But it does not begin to approach this.

Eddy Merckx: greatest athlete the world has ever seen? One of them, anyway.

( http://caliradocyclist.blogspot.com/2007/01/eddy-merckx-ridonkulous.html )

Uh, because it's sports and it's all about who's best, fastest, strongest, first.

It's why many people don't like gymnastics or diving, it's too subjective.

There is certainly nothing wrong with admiring Mark Spitz and what Phelps has done does not diminish his acheivement at all, but these are the arguments always had by sports fans. Could Babe Ruth be the hitter he was yesterday against the pitchers of today? Is Johnny Unitus really better than Joe Montanna or Bret Farvre? Advances mean improvements. So you really can only judge an athlete by the generation they live in. So of course Phelps is a better swimmer than Ian Thorpe, but Spitz maybe, maybe not.

I think I'm more in awe of what swimmers do for precisely the opposite reason Kamiya is more in awe of runners. I'm more in awe of swimmers because I don't think it's something we needed to evolve to do, there seems to be no reason to need to sprint in a pool. Plus, many of us don't "swim" on a regular basis. Sure hop in the pool, tread water, do a few laps, but very few of us ever do the butterfly, breaststroke, backstroke on a regular basis. You can get by in this world never learning how to swim.

I don't think any human besides those with obvious physical impairments has never run. We run all the time, certainly never even close to as fast as any of those men and women on that track, but we all run.

What Usain Bolt has done is amazing and he certainly left all his competors in the dust much more than Phelps did in the pool, but I'm siding with Phelps on this one.