Michael Phelps and The Pursuit of Greatestness

One of my favourite websites to liven up a room is The Most Awesomest Thing Ever, one of the most fabulous time-wasters you'll ever find. What's more awesome: James Gandolfini or pillows? Your email spam folder or the theory of relativity? The joke, of course, is that you can't compare these things. It's ludicrous, mindless, utterly stupid. That's the point. You get rat-arsed drunk, loudly argue whether Teletubbies are more awesome than the Doppler Effect, and then forget about it.

Michael Phelps or Larisa Latynina (pictured right)? A 6'4 superstar of world sport or a diminuitive 77 year old who last stepped on a gymnastics floor in 1966? Ridiculous, right? Apples and oranges? Er, no. Somehow, public discourse has actually determined that it is not only a reasonable question, but is actually an important debate that should rage across the planet. Sometimes, folks, the public are fucking idiots.

Listen, don't get me wrong: I love a good sporting debate as much - and probably more - than the next person. Disagreement, opinion and conjecture are what makes following sport a thrilling experience, and provides as much (if not more) entertainment than the action itself. But for goodness sake, as in any debate a line has to be drawn somewhere, and the line is definitively drawn when arguments get as downright stupid as this one has.

The clamour to brand Phelps (left), with his 18 gold medals, as The Greatest Olympian In History has been matched only by the efforts of the other side to dispute the claim. People have been tying themselves in knots trying to evaluate the Bawlmorese swimmer's achievements in the greater scheme of things. And my, has there been a load of shite talked in the process.

Oh, you can win loads of golds in swimming! Yes, but you can do that in gymnastics, in athletics, in cycling, all sorts of sports. The fact that there's lots of events in his chosen sport has literally nothing to do with Phelps as the greatest Olympian of all time, in the same way that the fact that Latynina had six events open to her at Games counts for nothing either. It is about achievement in a chosen field, and is evaluated as such. Any comparisons are not only absurd, they're also impossible.

But what about Bolt?! Well, indeed, he's very very good too. He is currently dominating the track like Phelps has dominated the pool. They have both excelled, but why on earth do we feel this daft requirement to lump every individual ever partaking in an Olympics into a giant drum together and rate them? This is sport, not science. We don't need a grading system. Comparing Phelps to Latynina, or to Bolt, or to Stevenson, Fischer, Lewis, Ainslie, Owens, Redgrave, Nurmi, or any other athlete from any other sport in any other era makes as much sense as an LFO song.

There will never be a "Greatest Of All Time", despite what Maurice Greene would have wanted. Stars will rise and fall, records will be set and broken, and just when you think you've seen everything there is to see, something else will come along. Don't even try to understand it all, to compare and contrast, to pretend like we can even comprehend the wonder of the Olympics. Just sit back and enjoy.