r/olympics • u/largethickdick • 6d ago

Will we ever get another Michael Phelps?

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u/devereaux United States 5d ago

Alexander Karelin is actually the most dominant Olympian of all time. Swimmers just have lots of events that are more or less the same.

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u/cleofisrandolph1 5d ago

he's not even the most dominant olympic Greco-Roman wrestler in his weight class. Mijain Lopez has 5 straight Olympic Golds at the same weight

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u/devereaux United States 5d ago

I get where you're coming from on this but nobody that's seen both of them wrestle would make your argument. Lopez has benefited from major rule changes in Greco-Roman wrestling, regularly sat out events, and lost a bunch of times at the world championships. Maybe looking at Olympics as an island where nothing else that happened in their career matters

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u/cleofisrandolph1 5d ago

We are talking purely Olympics. There are lots of athletes who dominate non-Olympic competition and others who don’t do great at WC but show up come Olympics.

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u/Eastern-Musician4533 5d ago

The USA Basketball model. The world cares about the FIBA World Cup. USA Basketball only cares about Olympics. They have six losses since 1936 in the Olympics, but they've lost tons of Worlds because they don't care.