There is no question. The only doubt is whether or not Phelps can pull a Federer and remind the world how good he is. Callum Ng , SwimSwam contributor, story-teller and entrepreneur. Completely disagree. I find the Lochte marketing campaign to be incredibly forced and kind of annoying. I agree with you about people still being drawn to Michael. I like Ryan he is fun and definitely has more personality and marketability but Michael still has my loyalty.
And that is why I will root for him over Ryan. Nice try. I really like Lochte. Lochte is more accomplished right now but Phelps is the best swimmer in the history of the sport. Maybe this type of greatness is in the cards for Lochte but it has not happened yet. Again, nice try. Ryan Lochte may be better currently, but from an overall point-of-view, no way! Michael Phelps has done what nobody has done before and won 8 gold medals in a single Olympic games.
I feel that he will always be recognized as one of the best, or the best, in the entire history of swimming — and always a step ahead of Ryan Lochte. I do agree with this article. He is at the to of his swimming game and as of right now swimmings biggest name. As for his star power, he has that. He is up front and says what he wants regardless. Thas why people … Read more ».
I agree with you. Phelps is great, but I think Ryan is more marketable and a hell of a lot better looking, more charismatic, and a better sport than Phelps. Phelps hates to lose, but has shown better sportsmanship this Olympics because he claims it is his last and wants to go out on a high note.
I respect his achievements and hopes he opens swimming clubs to teach others to do what he knows best. I do not know what other marketable skills he has so I cannot comment. Anyone can hate me for saying this, but as a woman, Phelps lisp, dumbo ears, unimpressive physique, and poor communication skills is a real turnoff.
Thanks for contacting us. We've received your submission. This was late one night — actually, early one morning — in the summer of , at a bustling tavern in Plaka, the social heart of Athens during the Olympics.
We could see the Parthenon from our table, where six of us, from six different countries, had just wound up another hour day covering boating, boxing and badminton, convincing our readers in five different languages that we were experts in all of them. I was enjoying both my Heineken and the international compliment when the reporter from The Australian newspaper explained the joke to me, which had gone sailing over my head.
But Steve had other ideas for channeling his son's energy. We would chug our milk to see who could drink the fastest. We'd see who could run and get the paper out of the mailbox first. I built in competitiveness. Focus was a tougher row, says Steve, also his son's swim coach at the time. Even so, "Ryan would go to the big meets and usually win.
Then, at 13, Lochte narrowly lost a Junior Olympic Championship race to his friend Brent Arckey, and afterward, as he stared out the passenger window on State Road 40, watching the trees tick by in the Ocala National Forest, he arrived at a conclusion: Losing sucked. Even now he can picture the unusually grave look on his child's face when he answered. Largely, Lochte didn't. He's won six gold medals, 12 overall, which puts him second in the pantheon of Olympic swimmers, behind Michael Phelps and ahead of Mark Spitz.
He holds multiple world records and-for better and worse-name recognition. It's mindless, it's boring. Ryan tries to put a face to the sport that at least is bearable and a little funny. Salo also sees strategy behind the clowning: "Everybody knows Ryan, everybody has an opinion of Ryan. Everybody is talking about Ryan one way or the other. I think he's probably playing us all for fools a little bit.
The prospect of Lochte subversively masterminding a campaign for cultural relevance is one deeply at odds with a common public perception of him as a -- but not limited to -- grade-A doofus, poster child of white male privilege, irredeemable narcissist, "jeah" brah, Olympic Village idiot, guy who can't count to 11 unless he's naked, human vape pen, king of jock mountain. In truth, Lochte probably isn't devoting his limited free hours to mastering the complex algorithms of image maintenance, a la Taylor Swift.
But this is less because he is dim than because of the underappreciated fact that Lochte has never tried to pretend that he's someone he's not. He's the Jimmy Fallon of world-class athletes -- benign, thirsty for love, sporadically amusing and prone to spontaneous, ill-considered decisions that make him seem more callow than he actually is.
Fame was never Lochte's goal, just the knotty byproduct of what his friends call "Ryan being Ryan. My grill. That stuff was meant to lighten the mood. I mean, this world is so negative.
If I can put a little bit of fun in people's lives, then I'm cool with that. Lochte recognized early that most of life is lived outside the pool, his ambition rooted in personality, not medal count.
The avoidance of failure, rather than wrathful domination. Avoidance is a theme in Lochte's life. He wins, then he swims to celebrate everyone else. I've seen him at a world championship give his gold medal to some random kid in the crowd.
Michael never did that. I heard last month Ryan spent hours signing for Masters swimmers. I mean, my god, these are old people. Lochte has kept his word. He says no to very little.
He picks up tabs, shares his sandwiches. A clash of personalities. A fight for supremacy. A duel between the aging veteran and the talented upstart. All these versions are intriguing, and sometimes they will overlap with one another to make for an even tastier tale. Such was the construction of the rivalry between Michael Phelps and Ryan Lochte. When Phelps broke onto the international scene as a year-old finishing fifth in the meter butterfly at the Olympic Games in Sydney, it was a matter of time before his talent projected to additional events.
By all methods, Phelps was the measuring stick in the sport, this still-developing force who could do a little bit of everything — and at a peak level. At the Olympics in Athens, his six golds and two bronze medals made him the first athlete to win eight medals in an Olympiad, his multi-discipline pursuits generating nonstop comparisons to the legendary Mark Spitz.
In Athens, a much quieter ascension was also unfolding. As Phelps won gold in the individual medley, the silver medalist was Lochte, nearly two seconds back. At that time, the truth is that Phelps had a more-balanced rivalry with Ian Crocker. The two had battled in the butterfly since , with Crocker holding the world record and winning world titles in and Phelps, meanwhile, won Olympic crowns in and and captured the world title in But the combination of Crocker retiring and Phelps facing Lochte in multiple events made the rivalry with Lochte more visible.
Although Lochte had been unable to beat Phelps through Beijing, it would be unfair to state Lochte was not making progress. His times in the medley events continued to drop and he was a regular presence on international podiums. At the Olympics in Beijing, he again defeated Peirsol and further lowered his global standard.
I know I can beat him.
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