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Phelps is first among equals

Swimmer’s feat is more noteworthy than Bolt’s, writes Mark Spitz

I saw the 100m won by Usain Bolt. He is certainly a great athlete. It is not for nothing that they call him the ‘Lightning Bolt’, and he could probably go even quicker!

His performances may have been extraordinary but I think it will be difficult for him to take the attention away from Michael Phelps who has been so strong. What Bolt has achieved is not less important but it has to be analysed with different criteri a when it comes to talking about sporting excellence.

One cannot say for example that Tiger Woods is not as good as those two. You have to use different criteria. He could not win seven competitions in one tournament as it would be like winning one practically every hole. It doesn’t make sense.

Bolt’s and Phelps’s performances are extraordinarily incredible. Though it is true that not every day somebody wins both the sprints in world record time, I still believe that Phelps’s haul of eight medals is more difficult to achieve.

So who is the star? The big star is already Michael, but there are other stars who have emerged from these games. Not just Bolt. You have to look at gymnastics and at the ‘Dream Team’ in basketball. I am American and I think they have been great.

I have been in New York and have had some photos taken with Sports Illustrated in which Michael appears on the cover with his eight medals.

They took 160 photos of me holding the magazine with Michael and his medals on the front.

After his success Michael is doing work of another kind with interviews and promotions. Obviously he has a lot of promoters behind him. It is only normal that he has to take the message of the companies that support him. He does it all very well. He already has experience with this side of the job.

Tougher job

I think this is tougher than the competitions because it is out of the pool and he can’t control it. He can say something and somebody can misinterpret it. When he is in the pool that does not happen. Nothing can be misinterpreted when he is in the water and wins. That is an absolute, a question of fact.

After I won seven gold medals in Munich in 1972 they took me straight out of Germany, because of the tragedy that had befallen the Israeli team and I returned to California. I did not stick around. From that point of view I did not have a very good time. I had to do the same thing that Michael is doing now with the press and with certain sponsors but in the USA.

Michael is already earning well but he is going to earn even more. The question now is how he behaves in relation to the expectations that these companies put upon him.

Swimming will benefit

And swimming is also going to benefit from having Michael as such an important figure, but I am not sure how.

The problem is that swimming is only on the television during the World Championships and the Olympic Games.

New events will have to be invented and I think they should be thinking in terms of television with reforms that allow commentators to speak with swimmers and coaches about tactics and ensuring that there are adequate breaks for advertisements.

Some things will have to change. — Distributed by Asia Features

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