It's the Suit Stupid...

With all due respect to Micheal Phelps and his other worldly performance at this years Olympics, crowning him the best of all time and similarly dismissing the achievements of Mark Spitz with statements like, Spitz is obliterated, Spitz cast asunder by Phelps, Spitz no longer the best of all time, is a little premature and disrespectful to the man who put swimming on the map.


Again, with all due respect to Micheal Phelps and his achievements, which are certainly a feet that may never be reached again, you have to recognize that the suit, the Speedo Lazr, has made Phelps the mythic figure he is today. One has to recognize that Phelps is the greatest swimmer of this generation, the simple fact is that with the entire field wearing the Speedo or a competitors version Phelps has out swam them all. No one can ever take that or his record gold medals away from him.


However, as with the evolution of most other sports, swimming has now reached the level where technical advancement has outpaced the physical achievements of the athletes themselves. There is no contesting this fact. Since the introduction of the Speedo Lazr in February, 30 + world records have been broken and re-broken. This has been with the same premier athletes in the sport that have been in the Sport since the last Olympics. Unlike Jamaica's Usain Bolt, who came out of nowhere and burst onto the scene to capture the 100m men's track and field gold medal, a new World Record, and the title of the World's Fastest Man, swimming has not witnessed a new athlete come forward to break all these records and claim glory. It has simply been the introduction of the suit that has made the difference.


Just like the introduction of titanium and graphite changed the game of golf and Tiger Woods legacy will always be questioned against that of Nicholas and Palmer, so too should Micheal Phelps be held in the same category as Mark Spitz and the debate can rage over who was the greatest swimmer of all time. Just as graphite rackets changed tennis, and the multitude of changes in baseball (mound height, tighter wound balls, smaller parks, night games, steroids, expansion) have established generational debates about which players in which era were the best, so too should the new technological era of swimming create debates, but certainly not a definitive declaration of Phelps as the greatest ever.


As Dennis Miller says, "That's just my opinion, I may be wrong."