Mark Spitz is a Wuss

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Mark Spitz is a wuss. Not that Michael Phelps thinks such a thought, but the constant comparisons between him and Spitz must get tiresome. On the one hand you have Phelps, perhaps the most complete swimmer in history. On the other you have Spitz, a phenom in his own right, but whose accomplishment of seven gold medals in a single Olympic Games took place almost forty years ago. Forty!

Comparing Phelps to Spitz is like comparing Spitz to Johnny Weismuller. Not to take anything away from those seven gold medals, but Spitz isn't even remotely close to being the swimmer that Phelps is. Consider: When their times are analyzed side by side, Phelps is more than seven seconds faster in the 200 fly, nine seconds faster in the 200 free, and four seconds faster in the 100 fly. Phelps and company's new 4 x 100 freestyle relay record i s fifteen seconds faster, and the 4 x 100 IM relay is eighteen seconds faster. My point is not to say that Spitz is a slug -- he wasn't -- but that Phelps is in a whole other performance stratosphere. If not for those seven golds, few modern swimmers would know of Spitz, and no commentator would even dream of comparing the two. So I can imagine it must be tiresome for Phelps to crawl out of the pool after setting yet another world record, and then face that same old question yet again: "Do you think you can break Mark Spitz' record?"

Phelps is, by all accounts, a very nice young man. So when a question like that is lobbed his way, he's only going to respond with niceties and a big smile. So I'll say the appropriate response for him: "Mark Spitz is a wuss."

Onward.

Nice to see the Brits take gold in the women's road race, just as it was nice to see America sweep the saber. I'm in that silly season when it comes to Olympic gazing, forcing myself to grit my teeth and suffer through hour after hour of gymnastics, knowing that the payoff is some actual competition. I've said it before and I'll say it again: There's no room for subjective20sports in the Olympics. Anything requiring judges can be rigged and is thus not pure. An Olympic sport should be an event where the contestants determine the winner. I'm on the fence about team sports, but I find them more appropriate than gymnastics or tandem diving (really, who let that circus stunt into the Olympic Games?).

And while we're at it, is it just me, or do the Karolyi's strike anyone else as a little creepy? A grown man and his wife running a farm where little girls are belittled and strictly rationed, wearing next to nothing while they do so. Call me crazy, but in most parts of the world they lock you up for that -- or at least ask a few hard questions about your motives.

Feels good to rant a little. Just off a plane from back east, which is why Mondays is a little late. Flew out of Baltimore at o-dark-hundred, which meant getting up three hours earlier. By the time I found my seat, it was time to sleep again. It still strikes me as miraculous that one can wake up on the Atlantic seaboard and arrive on the Pacific coast by midmorning. I was across the country in less time than it took Columbus to weigh anchor.

Finally, I think I have found something to train for. Trey Garman over at XTerra called with an invite for their Xterra Trail Running World Championships, or something like that. It's not until December, so I'd have plenty of time to get a little less plump than I'm feeling these days. Also, it would allow me to finish the new book and get through cross-country season with a minimum of distraction. I don't know the distances, and I don't know if Trey was actually extending an invitation or just testing my interest. But if Lance Armstrong can quietly train for something like Leadville and finish a solid second, which he did over the weekend, then the least I can do is find the motivation for a race that isn't even remotely as long or arduous. The man still inspires me, even from that land of semi-retirement in which he now dwells.

Mammoth next week. I'll be filing from someplace down in the meadow. Can't wait.

Keep pushing... always.

Comments & Feedback

Anonymous  - Spitz on You! |Posted on: 08.11.2008 Calling Mark Spitz a "wuss" was the most undeserved insult I've seen in over 2 years of reading your blog! How can you possibly compare someone who swam in a nylon Speedo to todays swimmers in their ultrafast hydrodynamic suits, in pools designed to create new world records every year. Spitz was the best swimmer of his era, and he proved it by beating everyone else in 7 events in one Olympics. If Phelps wins 8 golds, one might argue that he is better than Spitz. Till then cierra la boca!

Anonymous |Posted on: 08.11.2008 Marty - I agree with you on the subjective sport problem. I don't dispute that performing like that requires superior athletic ability, but how do you really judge whether one dive or tumbling pass is better then the next. Wish I had known you were in Maryland, I would have been happy to treat you to some local hospitality in return for getting you to autograph my DuGard collection. Have fun with the team at Mammoth next week. Maybe they will suprise you with limited edition T-shirts again this year. Looking forward to next week's take on the Olympics, we should have some track results by then I think. Eric - Columbia, MD

Anonymous |Posted on: 08.11.2008 thank you for saying what i've been thinking for the 20 years...the karolyi's are pervs! haha! i don't know another person who can get off (no pun intended) free patting 12-16 year old girls on the butt without a thought. ummm...can somebody please call the authorities on him before he gets his "girls" to start competing in brazilian cut bikini's?

Anonymous |Posted on: 08.11.2008 But Laurie, don't you think Spitz is being a bit of a whiny baby about not being formally invited to the Games? It sounds to me like sour grapes on his part. Oversights happen, and if the Chinese forgot all about air conditioning in all their incredible technological buildup maybe they forgot Mark was waiting for an engraved invitation to attend. He could have requested in advance to be the gold medal presenter this time but his ego made him wait it out, assuming that of COURSE they'd invite him. Maybe some hoopla would have happened as a result of his reminding them he exists and that he wanted to be acknowledged if the record was going to be broken. But the way he went about it --- he just sounds like a little girl pouting in the corner at a 4th grade slumber party "waaaaah!!! nobody's talking to meeeeee, waaaahhh!" He lost some dignity here and it wasn't because he was forgotten. His medals speak for themsel...

Anonymous |Posted on: 08.20.2008 Leave it to Camille to defend Marty come hell or high water. Almost as freaky as the Karolyis... Don't overlook the fact that Spitz did what he did...and then was whisked out of Munich for protection after terrorists killed Israeli athletes (Spitz is Jewish). His feat remains more impressive to me than Phelps' (by the slimmest of margins) because the coddling of athletes wasn't so over-the-top as it is today, and technology wasn't as much of a factor. Regardless of who's better, the simple fact -- FACT -- is that Spitz was the previous record-holder, doing something that no one had ever done before or, as Marty points out, in the almost 40 years since. How does that get overlooked? I don't blame the Chinese for overlooking the opportunity for hoopla, I blame the USOC and NBC.

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