I want to preface this article by saying that I love me some Michael Phelps. I mean I went to school with the guy at the University of Michigan, where I called him “Phelpsyâ€, stared at him from across the bar, and attempted to towel him off after workouts. So needless to say I was sporting a halfy as he won each of his 8 gold medals in Beijing. Of course we couldn’t just call what Michael Phelps did this August the greatest swimming performance of all-time.
 We couldn’t just put Phelps and his 14 gold medals and 7 world records on the Olympic Mt. Rushmore. Instead the sports media has had to go the extra step and say that Phelps’ Olympic performance was possibly the greatest athletic performance EVER. Not in the Olympics, not in a swimming pool, the greatest athletic performance that has ever taken place. With no disrespect to the sports media who never tries to take a great story and shove it down our faces until we despise everything involved with it, I can think of at least 10 athletes who have had much more impressive athletic performances then Phelps’ 8 golds.Â
Honorable Mention: Don Larsen’s perfect game in the 1956 World Series
In the process of going 10-1o from both the field and the line, Laettner happend to hit a fairly clutch buzzer beater to send the Blue Devils to the Final Four.
10. Wilt Chamberlain has sex with 20,000 women
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In “A View From Above†Wilt the Stilt wrote: “That’s correct, twenty thousand different ladies, at my age, that equals out to having sex with 1.2 women a day, every day since I was 15 years old.â€Â To me, this display of stamina is a little more impressive then swimming for 100 meters. I would have put this much higher on the list, but I have masturbated to 25,000 women which, at my age, that equals out to having sex JCPenny lingerie catalog models much more frequently then Chamberlain.
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9. Usain Bolt 9.69 second 100 meter dash
I didn’t think I saw ol Phelpsy pausing with 20 meters to go in the pool to showboat and do backflips like Usain Bolt did when he won the 100 meter dash and set a new world record. To be able to win by the margin he did on such a short race, while slowing down for the last quarter of the race was by far to me the greatest athletic performance of the Olympics.
8. Scott Young bench presses 225 lbs 43 times at the NFL combine
This record has to put Scott Young as one of the strongest men in the NFL, which is a pretty cool athletic achievement in itself.Â
7. Running a Marathon with no legs
It must’ve been tough for Phelps to have been such a successful swimmer. He only has a freakish wingspan and natural swimmers body, how did he do it? I have to say a guy running the London Marathon (2007) in 3 hours and 52 minutes (8:51 miles) with artificial legs is a bit more impressive.
6. Barry Bonds hits 73 Home Runs in a single season
An unbelievable accomplishment, it’s like he was possessed that season with a superhuman strength that made his head bigger and his testicles shrink
5. Kobe Bryant scores 81 points in a game
This wasn’t Chamberlain flipping shots over defenders a foot shorter then him, this was a guard hitting shots and driving to the basket at will against a Toronto Raptors team that made the playoffs that year.Â
Michael Phelps: “I can swim a medley faster then anyone ever has!â€
Franz Muellner: “Oh wow, I could only have a 1.8 ton helicopter land on my back. And then I could only support it for 60 seconds.â€
3. Joe DiMaggio’s 56 game hit streak
The USA Today did a countdown of the hardest things to do in sports a few years back. While being part of a Olympic swimming relay team was not on the list, hitting a baseball was number one. I happen to agree with USA Today (see: senior year batting average) and so the longest standing MLB hit streak deserves a spot on the greatest sports performances of all time. Dimaggio was so impressive that he ripped off an even longer, 61 game hitting streak in the minor leagues in the Pacific coast league in 1933.
2. Nolan Ryan 7 No Hitters
When you consider that only one other pitcher has more then 3 no-hitters (Sandy Koufax with 4) Ryan’s 7 No Hitters are unbelievable. Keep in mind also that 6 of those no hitters were in the American League and everyone of them occurred during the current DH-Era.
1. Jesse Owens’ Four Gold Medals in the 1936
In terms of political, social, and athletic significance, no other accomplishment on this list even comes close to Jesse’s exploits at the 36′ games, except Wilt’s 20,000 chicks, which has inspired generations of men to blatantly lie about if, when, and how many times they had sex with a woman.
Take away the whole Hitler thing for a second and you can argue that this was only Jesse’s second greatest athletic feat. Earlier that year Jesse broke or tied four world records in the span of 45 minutes at the Big Ten Track Championships.
The Angry T
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[...] 11 Athletic Performances That Rival Michael Phelps 8 Gold Medals [...]
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[...] 11 performances to rival the Phelpsian accomplishment [Angry T] [...]
[...] 11 Athletic Performances That Rival Michael Phelps 8 Gold Medals [...]
Gretzky’s 215 points in a single season? 92 goals?
Hockey IS a professional sport ya know.
even tho scott young benched 225 lbs 43 times at the combine you should note that there is a new record because in 07 Broderic Bunkley (Philadelphia Eagles DT) benched it 44 times….
11. Anyone can have a great night. Maybe if he did it 8 games in a row against the top 5 power forwards in basketball.
10. Wilt? No comment.
9. Let’s see Bolt set world records in the 200m, 400m, 1500m and the steeplechase. Then we can start comparing.
8. Maybe not football players, but I bet there’s a lot of power lifters who can do this.
7 & 5. Single event, single game accomplishments. Let’s see it happen on a regular basis.
6, 4, 3, 2 & 1. Now here’s five that can stack up next to phelps. Only Lewis’s golds are in olympic sports, and he only had 4, so I think it’s safe to say that Phelps is the greatest olympian ever.
I agree with Dave. In other words, you’re an idiot prior to numbers 3, 2 & 1. One game means you’re in a zone. A whole season means you’re great. Beating world records in multiple events means you’re great.
Anyone can take steroids. Laettner? Are you kidding me? He sure followed that up with GREATNESS. He’s right up there with MJ & Kobe!
Lastly, it’s THAN…not THEN. Your ability to grammatically compose and spell are tremendous…
I am sure I have read about Wilt many times before, and i dont know why I just thought of this question now, but how ugly must Mrs. 20k have been? I could but shagging hundreds of good looking babes, but seriously to get to 20,000 you have to really lower your standards, or have none to begin with.
The Toronto Raptors had the No. 1 pick in the draft a few months after Kobe scored 81 against them. They most certainly DID NOT make the playoffs.
Scott Young has had is number of reps beaten a number of times the last few years. He in fact never had the record. He was two reps short of Leif Larsen who had 45 in 2000.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/draft08/news/story?id=3252954
Fact check kthxbye.
It looks like we have a case of the pot calling the kettle black. mfhpr says, “Your ability to grammatically compose and spell are tremendous…”
Ironically, the proper verb conjugation in the sentence would read, “Your ability to grammatically compose and spell IS tremendous.” That is, tremendous refers to one’s ability, which is singular, rather than plural, and thus the word “is” is the correct conjugation.
However, if mfphr wrote “Your abilities (plural) to grammatically compose and spell are tremendous,†he would have been correct. I suppose that nitpicking only makes sense if one is consistently correct.
Your argument for including Kobe’s 81 over Wilt’s 100 could also be applied to Jesse Owen’s accomplishments in 1936. I also think you are letting the social impact of that event overshadow the actual athletic performance.
bolt’s showboating should be a detriment to the comparison. Phelps could have done that in a few of the longer races, but that would look just as ridiculous.
How about Terry Fox running a marathon a day for 143 days on one leg? None of the ones above come close.
Not to belittle Phelps accomplishments but in swimming you have more chances to medal because theres dozens of different races. It would be like Bolt winning the 100 meter freestyle dash, the 100 skip and the 100 hop and finally the 100 meter running backwards. Then he could do the same four at 200 meters and then we get to the the medley relay with Bolt running the anchor dash. Asafa Powell would lead off with the running backw…… You get my point. Carl Lewis’ olympic career wasn’t too shabby.
I nominate Pheidippides, the original marathoner. Who says great athletic achievements only occur during the age of television? The guy died after running from Marathon to Athens, bringing the news of the Athenian victory over the Persians and saving his city-state from surrendering and probable annihilation. Now that’s pressure.
Dave said: “9. Let’s see Bolt set world records in the 200m, 400m, 1500m and the steeplechase. Then we can start comparing.”
Even though I think Phelps is still the greatest olympian ever, swimming events have many more sprinting events than running. This would be more like Bolt winning the 60, 100, 150, 200, 250 (yes i know the 150 and 250 dont exist). Or maybe it would be like him running a race 50m forward, 50 sideways 50 backwards and 50 karaoke or something
What a shame no one ever mentions Eric Heiden’s five-for-five in Olympic skating. All distances. All world records. No fancy state-of-the-art equipment. Just talent, will, and heart. No skater today even does more than two distances.
And Bonnie Blair could skate a bit too.
Had Jesse Owens had the opportunity to run in 1940 and 1944, he would probably have won even more gold medals. As it was, World War II prevented these two Olympics from happening, and deprived Owens of his rightful shot at more Olympic glory. I would like to see how Michael Phelps would respond if placed in similar circumstances to Jesse Owens, instead of having praise heaped on him by almost everyone.
[...] 11 Athletic Performances That Rival Michael Phelps 8 Golds. [Angry T] [...]
Anything Christian Laettner ever did?
Some dude lifting something over his chest a lot of times?
Put down the crack pipe, guy. You’re not just a hater, you’re a dumb one as well.
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Secretariat’s performance at the Belmont blows away ANYTHING I’ve ever seen…
and I’ve seen alot
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