Michael Phelps was golden to the end.
The Baltimore swimmer capped his Olympic career by giving the U.S. 4×100-meter medley relay team the lead with one leg remaining, then lifting his arms in glory as the Americans won by nearly two seconds.
Phelps’ wide smile never faded during the last three Olympic games. The memories in the water won’t either.
Phelps is the greatest Summer Olympian ever. Better than track athletes Carl Lewis and Jesse Owens, gymnasts Larissa Semyonova Latynina, Nadia Comaneci and Olga Korbut and fellow swimmer Mark Spitz.
Multiple Olympics and events mean the best-ever conversation concerns mostly swimmers and track athletes. Boxers Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard were great champions, but they could win only one medal in one Olympics. Owens’ four gold medals in 1936 surely were the greatest political statements ever at the Olympics when he destroyed Adolf Hitler’s “master race” theory on German soil. Still, it’s still just one Olympics and four medals.
Women’s gymnastics is usually the most popular sport, but the window is usually just one Olympics — maybe two. Latynina’s 18 medals over three Olympics showed her true greatness. Comaneci delivered the first perfect 10 on a scoreboard that didn’t even permit it. Korbut changed the sport with her four golds and two silvers in 1972 and 1976 by inspiring a generation of young girls to take on a sport that then was full of older women.
Total medals are the best barometer of greatness, and it’s the difference between Phelps and Lewis. Still, it’s a close call.
Lewis won 10 medals, including nine golds, over four Olympics from 1984 to 1996. He tied Owens’ single Olympics mark by winning gold in the 100, 200, 4×100-meter relay and long jump in 1984 and twice set world marks in the 100 meters. He won the long jump four times.
But Phelps won 22 medals, including 18 golds. Eleven of the victories were in individual events. He won a record eight golds in 2008. It’s hard to say Lewis was the greater Olympian when Phelps won nearly as many golds in one Olympics as Lewis did in four.
Phelps almost tarnished his legacy in his final games even though he won four golds and two silvers in seven events over the past week. He seemed disinterested in the early events, even finishing fourth in the 400-meter individual medley. Maybe that loss sparked him the rest of the week because Phelps suddenly looked like his 2008 self. Champions don’t like to lose, and Phelps maybe took the London Games too lightly at the start.
Retirement now looms. That is, unless Phelps’ desire returns in the next few years. Spitz attempted a comeback 20 years after his seven gold medals in 1972 but didn’t even qualify for the Olympics. Phelps likely knows this was his time and won’t look to return in 2016.
Phelps always seemed to be taking a final look around on the winner’s stand this week, soaking it in. So were his fans.
Examiner columnist Rick Snider has covered local sports since 1978. Read more on Twitter @Snide_Remarks or email [email protected].
