Quote:
Originally Posted by Bertuzzied
I think more people in world talked more about Ben Johnson more then Spitz
in the past 20 years.
How many people really care about swimming if not at the olympics? They have world championships every year and it never gets covered. Does anyone watch them? The 100 metres was on every major sports site and newspaper when it is broken. Bolt, Powell,Gay.
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Ben Johnson wasn't in the media for the past 20 years for athletic reasons.
Talking about which event is covered more is irrelevant. 100m is THE big glamour event, no question.
But every Olympics when they talk about individual medal totals, Spitz was always the name that came up, and he was alone in that category. The Olympic sprint event winners are largely a footnote as soon as a new winner is crowned, at least compared to how Spitz was remembered.
So i disagree with your assertion that people will remember that 5 years down the road Bolt set 2 world records and Phelps will be forgotten. I think the opposite will occur. Unless someone else gets 8+ gold medals, Phelps will be remembered every Olympics. As soon as someone breaks Bolt's record, he will only be mentioned occasionally. And I think that is largely just because of how often the 100m/200m records have been broken, while 8 Olympic golds can only be attempted every 4 years, and thus that record will probably last (and be talked about) much longer.