Yesterday (or the day before: it’s hard to tell, because of
the NBC coverage!), Michael Phelps won his 19th Olympic medal, finally
surpassing the medal count of the previous Greatest Olympian of All Time:
Larissa Latynina, gymnast of the Soviet Union. Yeah, um, in your face, Larissa, I guess?
The fact is, comparing Michael Phelps to Larissa Latynina
isn’t even like comparing apples and oranges; it’s more like comparing
chocolate mousse and filet mignon: they’re both great, but they’re totally
different in every way, except that they’re food. (And we all love them, but
for different reasons, and at different times!) And with these athletes, they
are completely different except in that they are Olympic champions. And they
are both great: about as great as Olympic athletes get! Can’t we just honor
their achievements and respect them? (Nope! Journalists have to make a splash
too, you know! {Since they’re not good at sports, I guess…})
Four years ago, they had a co-interview of Michael Phelps
and Mark Spitz, and I was surprised to see that Mark Spitz didn’t just say:
“Yes, finally I have been bested.” Except that he only didn’t win more gold
medals because, as he said, there weren’t as many events back then, so he ran
out of opportunities. So basically, it’s not possible to compare (even with
swimmers from different eras), because it’s not an equal playing field, and
they should all just say they’re the greatest of whatever generation. But
that’s swimming: when you start comparing
a male swimmer from the 2000s to a female artistic gymnast from the 1950s and
60s, you’re getting into Imaginationland there.
I found it most fun to see an article talking about how
Larissa Latynina won a gold while pregnant, and I was like: “Oh, game over,
dude!” Until I realized, with our genetic technology these days, surely we
could implant a zygote (or even 2! How about an Octomom’s worth of zygotes?)
into Michael Phelps, just so he could finally compete on the same level, and
defuse those Latynina supports once and for all! (We’d just have to relax those
stringent Republican-imposed genetic experimentation bans, which should be
easy: all we have to do is accuse them of secretly aiding a Soviet Communist to defeat Michael Phelps: Mr. American Freedom! And surely they’d have to cave on
that reasoning, right?)
So come on, Phelps: if you’re so good, let’s see you win
with a fetus in your tummy! (Maybe he could just swallow one? Does that count?)
BTW: This is all just a silly joke, like comparing Michael
Phelps with Larissa Latynina is. They’re both the best of their generations:
what more can you ask of any athlete
(unless you want to create fake drama)? Enough already: They’re both the best!
Here’s a link to but one of these silly comparative
articles:
