YES

I do not agree with the "Zimbabwe" Rule, due to the following reasons:

Team medal should count, because without individual efforts there is no team award. Besides, even using your rule, it is a tie now between Carl Lewis and Michael Phelps, and the Beijing (Peking) 29th Olympics has not finished yet . In addition, Silver and Bronze should also be considered. The original list of names is also very limited. What about the women Gymanastic star from Romania?

I want Michael to win, and wish him the best of luck. However, I like sports star from track and field arena better. Carl Lewis is the answer, and that is just my personal preference.

What is your name?

Thanks.

Yes-more so if he wins the remaining three events!

Jim Thorpe was and always will be the greatest Olympian.

Absolutely!!!

Hugh, I have some difficulties with your way of counting medals. A big bunch of gold around one's neck always looks fabulous and is worth endless headlines. But what about those competing in a sport without any chance to obtain more than one medal?? All the teams, basketball, hockey etc. they go through many many matches, lasting hours, and in the end out comes ... never more than one medal. Or take the decathletes? They compete for almost two entire days for just one medal. Phelps or Lewis swim or run for some seconds, do that never more often than three times and get the medal.

So who in the end made more efforts to win the gold? Hard to say, I know, but if you are not practising a sport that allows you by the rules to get into a gold rush, does that mean you will never be such a great Olympian??

There are other people on the US swim team doing great things. Cullen Jones is the first AA on this team and to win a gold medal in this sport yet his picture is never shown with the team. To the cameramen, it is like he is not there. I have yet to see him photographed with the team. It would be great if CNN highlighted with young man especially after running that NEGATIVE series "Black in America" on how black men are not doing anything positive or locked up. Here is a young black man breaking barriers not no publicity. I guess if he was robbing a liquor store or getting beat by the cops, it would be newsworthy.

I agree with Antonia... absolutely.
Let me add, how about Jesse Owens? Who won 4 golds against insurmountable odds? He did it before Hitler and the "great Aryan Race"; and WWII looming around. And the racial discrimination back home. Competing in 4 track events, he had to undergo so many tests including probable racial slurs.
For me, Jesse Owens is the greates Olympian, next is Cassius Clay, followed by Michael Jordan.

This is the best site, good.!
welcome to BRAZIL. verry kisses.

Did Phelps ever beat Ian Thorpe (the Thorpedo)? If he didn't then he shouldn't be considered the best individual swimmer. I wish Phelps and Thorpe would race....maybe for charity...That would be the bee's knees

Thtere has been so many interviews with Phelps mother and sisters, I would like to know who is Michael Phelps father and where is he?

any athlete that goes to the olympics and brings home a medal is a great athlete. one cannot compare the hardships a swimmer has to undergo compared to a marathoner. it would be best therefore if best athletes be named in every sport. No one athlete is better than the other.

Did any one realize that a swimmer can qualify for numberous events while the others are limited in the number they can qualify for. What is the ratio?

Compared to the rest of us, all athletes competing in the Olympics are the best. Most of us never know the time and effort they put in just to get there

Let's wait a months or even years before we draw any conclusions. I can remember a few athletes who had to give their medals back because they or their team members confessed using steroids or other forbidden stuff.

Paavo Nurmi would have won more medals, but because some jealous Swedish Olympic official said that he took too much money for his travel expenses, he was banned from amateur sports. So Paavo Nurmi was banned from Los Angeles olympics in 1932. For us Finns Paavo is the greatest!

I agree with some others that it is not a fair fight that the best olympian is chosen according to medals. There are many sports that one can achieve only one medal for each olympics: javelin throw, badminton, fencing, judo, discus throw, boxing, wrestling, pole vault etc.

WITHOUT A QUESTION!!!! The fact that this guy makes the world's best look like boys should say enough. He seems so relaxed, even enough to fall behind slightly and then kick it to his opponents in the last fifty meters. Remember the team 800 that he led off in? By the end of his turn, the United States had at least a two body length lead. This guy doesn't lose!

Paavo Nurmi is the greatest.

"Records will be broken, gold medals lose their lustre, winners find their victors. As historical concept, Paavo Nurmi will never be beaten."

Phelps is by far and above the greatest athlete of the modern games. Tracy Caulkins and Janet Evans were the greatest of their times, but Michael is doing this at the right time, right place, doing times that are hard to comprehend. As compared to short seasoned pro sports, this guys gives us another Cal Ripken like figure from our most underappreciated year-round sport. Alongside of college sports, this spectacle will be hard to match.

There will never be any such thing as the greatest Olympian athlete of all time. Michael Phelps will rule for now, but somewhere down the line another swimmer will come along and do what Phelps did or maybe even win more gold medals. It's unavoidable.

And while we're at it, let's not forget that winning medals and breaking records aren't everything in an Olympiad; those are just the frosting on the cake. It's performance, character, and teamwork that counts, even if an athlete doesn't win a medal in his or her event.

Phelps is amazing, that is for sure, but I still feel that Kerri Strug is the greatest... the vault while injured... it was a defining moment in so many lives. Pure inspiration!

All athletes do their best in the Olympics are the greatest.
I appreciate them for spending their whole life on training, just to
entertain us.

Isn't it obvious that Michael Phelps is on STERIODS!!!

btw, what free speech is there if you don't allow this post?

To Felicia: So true, so true. I haven't seen hide nor hair of Cullen Jones, yet there have been segments of the other members of the swim team. What's the story here?

Phelps is on steroids from his own genetic production.. He trains 5 hours a day... He won the the 100 meter butterfly for only 1 reason... He wanted to win. He accelerated into to wall and never let up pressure. His opponent quit the race and glided. It is exactly this attitude, the extreme desire to win, his training reg, and his humble attitude out of the pool that make him the greatest Olympian of all time. Not only has he amassed more medals... he is a team player, Look at his attitude during relays. He takes adversity and uses it to steel himself for victory. He is the right stuff. Hard working , honest, tough, resilient, good sportsmanship, and he has won more medals than anyone else... One other point. his single victory in the 400 IM is MUCH more substantial that anything done by SPITZ. He is a master of all 4 strokes.. look at the splits.

This is addressed to Rika, whose comments about steroid use by Michael Phelps sound like sour grapes. Phelps is rigoursly tested for a whole bunch of drugs including steroids on a regular basis (even at the Games) just like all the other athletes. This isn't about freedom of speech, it is about being informed with the facts BEFORE you exercise your right to speak out.

To answer the question posed – if Michael Phelps isn't the greatest, then he is pretty darn close. He's a terrific natural athlete who trains hard to get where he is. I agree that in the future, many more spectacular athletes will emerge to beat Phelps and the others who have gone before.

Its extremely fraustrating that NBC is not showing the most exciting events of the olympics and continue to show over and over swimming.
I think some of the most exciting events of the olympics are the sprints, the long jump and tripple jump and others. I have been waiting for this olympics for months and you can imagine how disappointed I am having to watch swimming all day when the sprints are not been aired. Unfortunate.

Enough of Michael Phelps. Yeah he is a great swimmer, but there are several other exciting races which are not being covered. We have watched enough swimming. Show us some olympics stuff.

How about we calculate the cost of each gold medal and then list countries that have the best cost to medal ratios.

It seems unfair to me to compare athelete from countries that spend millions on their Olympcis teams to countries that spend next to nothing.

The Olymics have lost the plot. They are no longer noble events but a froum now were rich countries try and outspend each other to get the highest medal tally, or where contries that are not so rich try and keep up. (and spend money on the Olympics rather than building earthquake resistant schools for example)

Greg Atkinson
http://www.shareswatch.com.au/blog/