one can't measure difficulty of a sport by the amount of sweat expended. Degree of difficulty, duration, number of competitors should be factored in as well. In swimming, it is a comfortable sport since a swimmer is surrounded by cool water with constant heat dissipation and never get thirty (u can gulp in water anytime). Marathon runners, badminton players dont have such luxury.
what is interesting is earlier on in the thread, someone proved statistically, lin dan was better than phelps. if you take the total number of golds available in swimming, and divide the number phelps got (remember only .25 for relays as it is a team event) by the total, you get something like 19%. but Lin Dan won 1 of 5 golds, meaning he technically got 20% of available golds, hence he is better
Degree of difficulty is obviously not objective: who could make a perfect system to judge how difficult each is? Maybe Morgan Freeman/God? Duration: This belittles sprinting events and most short races in general, like most swimming events, most track events (except for races like the marathon and the 10k), gymnastics. Also, this would make baseball seem quite "difficult." Another matter here is that Phelps often had little time between events, even once down to a little less than half an hour between races. Lin Dan can usually expect a rest of about a day/half a day between matches or more. For the number of competitors, wouldn't Michael Phelps have faced more people per event? He had to face off against 7 in the preliminary heats. Another 7 in quarterfinals, then another 7 in semis, and lastly the finals. That's a total of 28 competitors, I believe. That water may be cool, but the overall stadium temperature shouldn't differ much from the badminton courts, not to mention that people will be continually sweating into the pool...ew. XD Therefore, I don't think too many people will be taking a gulp of that. The chlorine in there probably makes it even less appealing. Oh, on another note, marathon runners do get water...and sometimes even other drinks too. Not to say that marathon running is easy, but I just wanted to point that out.
whilst this was an interesting analysis, it is not really a good way of proving whether someone is better than another. In some sports their is only 1 gold available - so the Gold winners would be at 100% - meaning there are many many people better then Phelps Btw unless LD can have a gender change during tournaments he actually got 33% because he is only eligible to play in MS, MD, XD
Actually LD is only eligible to play in MS, as he will need a partner to play in any doubles event. Plus if we are to compare LD and Phelps, then badminton do need events like backhand stroke only, smash only, drop shots only, and etc matches... as you can not compare badminton doubles with swimming relays... you don't see Phelps swim with his teammates at the same time, do you? As long as Phelps can swim much faster than other teams, there is still a chance for catching up. In badminton, if one side focus their attack on one person, the partner can do little to nothing about it(in most cases), and it won't end until the match is over, unlike in swimming, once the weaker teammates is done his/her own part, he/she can't affect the outcome of the match any more.
i'm not saying Lin Dan is better than phelps purely from such a simple statistic. i am merely pointing out one way to approach it (however simplistic it is). what i really want to say is it's almost impossible to compare athletes accurately.
Maybe I used the wrong terminology. Yes he was not eligible to play since he didn't qualify, but he could have played if he wanted to get partners and try qualify. As we have found out throughout this thread it is a futile argument one way or the other. It cannot be proven either way it is pruely opinion. I know...thanks.
Neither is Phelps. The fastest man in the water (50m frontcrawl) is CIELO (BRA). Why he did not win more swimming events since he is taller than Phelps is beyond me. Incidentally, LEVEAUX (FRA) is 2nd in that event. At 2.02m, he is taller than both Phelps and Cielo. Why is Cielo faster despite the obvious 7cm height disadvantage? I have no idea why this comparison even started. What I do feel is that as sportsman/women, we should respect each other's sports even if we do not know too much about them.
100% agreed. Not just LD vs Phelps, even in the same sport there are no points to compare unless they compete in the same event.
QUOTE COOLER: "Degree of difficulty is obviously not objective: who could make a perfect system to judge how difficult each is? Maybe Morgan Freeman/God? Duration: This belittles sprinting events and most short races in general, like most swimming events, most track events (except for races like the marathon and the 10k), gymnastics. Also, this would make baseball seem quite "difficult." Another matter here is that Phelps often had little time between events, even once down to a little less than half an hour between races. Lin Dan can usually expect a rest of about a day/half a day between matches or more. well,, most swimming matches last 1 to 2 mins per swimmer. A badminton match last 30 to 60 mins. Assuming only 50% is playing time, that leave 15 -30 mins of intense playing time. In swimming, it's like doing stair master exercise, rotational action with the benefit of suspension in water, ie. no pounding stress on the joints. In badminton, athlete's joints get abused and even risk injury. Therefore, swimmers body is faster to recover, mostly muscles related (ie. lactic acid removal). Badminton pros have both muscles and joints to recover between matches. If u think i'm exaggerating, look how handicapped and/or injured people go to the pool to exercise in their recovery stage. Surely physican won't advise them to workout in the pool if swimming and alike activity are so stressful to the body. Swimming mostly tax the cardiovascular system, for a mintue or 2, not much else. On longer relays, a swimmer don't go all out anyway. A slow laps around the pool is easier on the body than a stroll in a park A: Obviously there is less stress on the bone structure. However, the effort to win should not be affected by how much one's bone structure is damaged. For example, American football should not be any more difficult than badminton, but under your criteria, it is: The players have plays to memorize, the quarterback to follow, opposing players to watch out for, defense/offense shifts, moves to shake others off, spur of the moment changes in plays, etc. Also, it is much more brutalizing than badminton. Yet, it is inferior. The skills and effort are inferior. However, Michael Phelps does require more skill and effort to win his 8 gold medals over Lin Dan's one in terms of mental strength, muscle fatigue/cardiovascular recovery, etc. You also said that on longer relays, swimmers don't go all out. So, in a badminton game that lasts two hours or more (that's happened before), the badminton players don't go all out then? The pacing is merely different. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- For the number of competitors, wouldn't Michael Phelps have faced more people per event? He had to face off against 7 in the preliminary heats. Another 7 in quarterfinals, then another 7 in semis, and lastly the finals. That's a total of 28 competitors, I believe. yes, i've talked about number of competitors as one of the parameter but it's not an important one especially badminton and swimming interact with their opponents so differently. Badminton, one compete directly against opponent. In swimming, like golf, u compete mostly against yourself. Yes, there might be some influence of water wakes from other lanes but really not a huge factor, like saying would a pro influeced by his golfing partners. A: My point was that statistically, Michael Phelps has less of a chance to win even one gold medal, much less 8. He has more people to contend with, less time to rest, and also, if he has one slipup and his opponents have one good day, he might lose. Lin Dan's draw had him face less than the majority of all major competitors. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ That water may be cool, but the overall stadium temperature shouldn't differ much from the badminton courts, not to mention that people will be continually sweating into the pool...ew. XD Therefore, I don't think too many people will be taking a gulp of that. The chlorine in there probably makes it even less appealing. air quality is similar but swimmers no doubt have much better cooling (ie. less stress to the body) than land based athletes. I'm sure each swimmer is well quenched before each race and dont need any extra water for such short duration race. All i was saying they can drink it if they want to. Chlorine in water? my tap water is chlorine tasting too and is approved for drinking. A: Swimmers no doubt have better cooling? I don't know. Do you? It's not like either of us went down into the water or onto the gym floor, is it? Well, take a picture of you in the water and come back and tell me, yeah? I really don't know about it, but there is doubt, oh, no doubt about that. ^_~ Isn't each badminton player well-quenched before each race and at occasional periods throughout the match? Well, heck, the swimmers can swig some water, the athletes can drink some of their sweat. They're both about as useful to the body as one another. Hey, well, if you like chlorine water, it would be a great idea to have your swimming pool as your water source, right? Why didn't I think of that? ------------------------------------------------------------------------
no need for me to reply point by point, your last post is self evidence on the different of levels of understanding basic physical science. Funny how u doubt water cooling and still gave us 'i dunno answer'. You see, I DO KNOW about cooling, i even named myself cooler. http://www.coolermaster.com/products/product.php?language=en&act=detail&tbcate=1&id=3855
Well, I would respond back to you point by point, but your last post has just about as much meaning as mine. ^_~ I did not mention basic physical science directly, and perhaps you'd like to point out where (invisible-colored text)? I doubt water cooling? Who, me? Well, water may be usually cool, but if you've swam before, then you know that oftentimes the water is not really that cool. Point here is: I don't know about you, but water isn't always cool, so I don't know what you mean. I don't even know if you know what you mean. Well, of course I can give an "I dunno" answer: I'm not trying to prove what the water is like, but I have past experiences where pool water was warm due to all the humidity of the pool building and the activity of all the people. Also, there's this summer factor; it makes stuff like water warm. Nice cooler (link), but I've got those at my store too.
forget about them two! of course we're biased, this is 'the' badminton forum for cry out loud. for me swimming is just like running, i can do it just a bit slower, so what? as for badminton i'll never play a backhand smash like TH, a killer jump smash like LD nor play like PJB or GL at the net. so, phelps swim faster than many, good for him. but have you watched that guy from brazil won the gold metal in the same event as phelps with a new world record (100m fly, i think), only about 5 seconds slower with only one arm in the paralympic? how about that american girl swimmer with both legs amputated! they are the ture true champions.
agreed, Phelps has so many backups i.e. 8 events. Also he dominated based on 2 areas of strength, freestyle and butterfly. He got 5 medals directly from butterfly/freestyle and then rode them in the medleys as well. So in some sense he is two trick pony. His 8 medals aren't worth 8 badminton golds or arguably a Decathlon gold. It's more media hype than anything else. Still quite an achievement though mentally to keep up a high level of performance over the 2 weeks.
It doesn't matter if he has so many backups because his one goal was to get 8 golds and nothing less. He had 8 chances to lose and he didn't.
Basically- if LD has the oppourtunity to challenge in 8 events- I sincerley believe he would win them all and get 8 medals. So saying MP is the best olympian ever is not at all fair. The best olympian swimmer yes, but not best ever. Its not fair to say that because some athletes, thoguh as good at their sport, dotn get the oppourtunity to get 8 medals. What Phelps has done os awesome beyond awesome- but I'm never going to call him the best olympian ever. hes not.
Strange I see many times Nadal shows here. But he is not GREAT player at all if we are talking about a sport for years. I can understand seeing Agassi or Sampras at this place (like someones who consecutively won for years), but Nadal.. good player but not at the legs of someones like LD
Biggest achievement is Bolt I think. Consider which sport is the one which the most people participate in, i.e. in which sport is the Olympic winner closest to the best XXX player the world can produce. So if everyone in the world were to do swimming full time, what chance that Phelps will win his medals? But if everyone in the world did running full time, it is very likely that Bolt will still win his two medals. In sprinting, it seems that one can get 95% of peak performance without too much training. So our hypothetical Bolt-beater will be able to run under 11sec untrained. Under 11sec untrained is very likely to cause you to become noticed, and you will receive training. So it seems like everyone in the world is able to "take part" in the 100m. This is not true for badminton or swimming.
