"Mount Rushmore" of Sport

[Reiser99]

For Phelps there is also the issue that his body was almost perfectly designed for excelling at swimming. Is it as big an achievement when you have a permanent physical advantage?

 

[Bada-Bing!]

Isn't he on record as saying that if anyone snubbed him, it was FDR?

Jesse Owens - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

According to his Wikipedia FDR never invited Owens to the White House in recognition of his accomplishments. And also that Owens was a staunch Republican.

I also do recall that FDR also only invited Joe Louis to the White House but only outside. That was before the Max Schmelling fight in 1938, when that fight was billed as Nazi Germany v the free world.

 

[Bada-Bing!]

For Phelps there is also the issue that his body was almost perfectly designed for excelling at swimming. Is it as big an achievement when you have a permanent physical advantage?

Isn’t this the same for Bolt and his ability to match frequency of shorter men’s stride with his longer legs?

 

[Reiser99]

Isn’t this the same for Bolt and his ability to match frequency of shorter men’s stride with his longer legs?

In general yes, but a long stride isn't too uncommon. Phelps had far more with long arms and ankles that were double jointed etc...

 

[RedruthRFC]

In general yes, but a long stride isn't too uncommon. Phelps had far more with long arms and ankles that were double jointed etc...

It's no surprise that Phelps got lots of attention given the profile that his achievements gave him, so we know these things. Without a massive academic survey, what's to say that his natural gifts outweigh those of other sports people? All sports people's performance is a function of the gifts they were born with and what they have done with them.

Lots of greats have gifts that make them stand out from their peers: Big Mig's lungs the size of a terraced house and low heart rate, Jordan's hands like baseball mitts and crazy vertical, Bolt being half a foot taller than the prototypical 80s/90s sprinter, Lomu having a combination of size and speed / acceleration that hasn't been seen before or since. Where do we draw the line and who is the arbiter of this?