>>Well, my rant of the day is that I am tired of listening / reading / viewing everywhere that Michael Phelps is the best athlete of the history (sometimes Olympic is omitted) for all the Gold medals he got, and I think that is just a pile of BS. How can the best boxer / judoca / football player / basketball player etc etc will ever win more than one medal when they have only one fricking chance? Furthermore, why in hell there are so many competitions for some sports, like swimming? Why don't they just consolidate all those categories (like 50m, 100m, 200m, 400m, 800m 1010.192398m) into one competition to see who is the best swimmer, and then give them just one Gold damn medal. Like in sailing, give points according to their position in each race and the one that has in the end less point is the winner
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>Doesn't make sense. They all involve swimming, but the races are totally different in the refined skills needed. Yes, they are all swimming, but there are specialists who do sprints, butterfly, relay, etc. They are not all the same other than they are swimming.

I agree. Take long jump and high jump. Both are jumps; both goes through the air (as swimmers go in the water); both land on something soft. Yet you don't see the person winning high jump getting any medals in the long jump, and vice versa <g>