The Sports Lowdown For All Your News and OpinionsThe numbers game: Level of success
In claiming the historic “treble treble” Bolt achieved something that no other athlete has ever done before, and that is to defend all three sprint events successfully for three consecutive Olympics (Beijing, London and Rio). It also took his total medal haul to 9 Golds, the joint most of any male Athletics star, tied with Carl Lewis and Paavo Nurmi, giving him a 100% record in the last three Olympic games.
Whilst Bolt’s medal haul is far from shabby, it is Michael Phelps who takes this one, and by a country mile as well: 23 Gold medals, three silver and two Bronze medals for the ‘Baltimore Bullet’. Whilst merely looking at total number of medals would be insufficient, it is poignant that two other track athletes have done what Bolt has managed, yet no swimmer – male or female – has come remotely close to challenging Phelps’ record number of golds (the second most successful male swimmer is Ryan Lochte with 12 medals, 6 of them Golds).
That should prove enough to challenge those foolhardy people who claim Phelps’ medal haul is only so great because of the amount of opportunities he has to win – if what Phelps does is easy to accomplish, why has no other swimmer got into double digits for Olympic Gold Medals? And the answer is because no one can, and no one is willing to cram so many events into their schedule. Simple as that.
In regards to statistics, Phelps is the clear winner.
