[Cerek]

Originally Posted by Variol (Farseer) Elmwood I just saw this on the CBC website and it really bothered me. Why not put Bolt in the water and Plelps on the track and see what happens? Or better yet, put them on the rings! There are so many excellent athletes that excel at what they do, how can you say one is the best? Gymnastics are amazing to watch; weight lifting has been crazy; triathlons look pretty damn grueling... The only difference is that water and running sports have way more options to get metals. So, if you're really good, you clean up. Why not have 7 or 10 shooting events? Huh, I needed that off my chest..

The best way to compare athletes from different sports is to look at the overall impact they have had on their chosen field.

Is Tiger Woods better than Michael Jordan? Putting them in the other's specialty isn't the answer. MJ could probably at least give Tiger a respectable challenge on the golf course (although he would still lose), but Tiger wouldn't stand a chance against MJ on the basketball court. But that isn't what's important.

The determining factor is the impact an athlete has on their sport and how completely they dominate the competition. In that light, I would say Tiger and MJ are almost dead even. When they are at their best, there is nobody else in the sport that can touch them. When they are at their worst, the rest of the field has an even shot. That's pretty dominating.

So let's look at Phelps and Bolt. I haven't got to see much of the Olympics, so I honostly don't know that much about Bolt's abilities. But Phelps accomplished something that hasn't been done in over 35 years - he won every single event he entered. Two of them were team events, but his effort still helped his team to win. I assume Bolt also runs on the relay team. So, if Bolt wins every event he has entered, then I say he is equal to Phelps. If he doesn't, I say he is still a tremendous athlete, but may not be quite in the league of Phelps.

The same thing goes for gymnastics. All gymnasts compete on each apparatus and also have a chance to compete in the overall competition. So if they win each portion of the competition they enter, that puts them in circle of very elite athletes. If not, they are still excellent athletes, but may not have that extra little bit of natural talent that let's them dominate their sport.

Same principal can be applied to decathletes and ironmen competitors. How do they compare to others in their sport. Are they SO good that certain moves are named after them (such as Kurt Thomas in gymnastics) or competitors actually have to change the way they compete to account for them? Until MJ came along, teams never worried about a player running from half court to slam dunk a missed free throw. The first time MJ did it, everyone just stood at stared (even his own teammates), because NOBODY had ever done anything like that before. The second time he did it, teams changed their defensive alignment on free throws to block MJ's lane to the basket.

So those are factors you can look at to compare athletes from different sports.
Did they dominate the sport so completely that nobody could beat them?
Did they actually change the way the sport is played?
Did they innovate the sport by doing things nobody had ever done before?
What was their overall impact on the sport?