Does the olympics have too many similar swimming events?

Question

As top swimmers can win so many medals at a single olympics, doesn't that suggest that the swimming events are too similar to each other?

A good swimmer walks away with a fistfull of medals, whereas people in other sports have one or maybe two events that they can enter.

Answer 1

What think is that while Phelps has (as of right now) 11 gold medals he is considered by most to be the greatest Olympic athlete.  While people like Misty May and Kari Walsh who have not even lost a game in beach Volleyball in the past two Olympics will only walk away with one gold medal.  It is fair to say Phelps is better then May or Walsh, I think not.  Same goes for the basketball team, they play for the whole two weeks and only end up with one medal if they win.  Are they any less important then Phelps.  This is where we have our quandary.

Answer 2

Well...kind of disagree there...I am sure someone like Carl Lewis did bag fistful of medals in a given Olympic...didn't he?  Marian Jones certainly did but she cheated so I guess she doesn't count.  Correct me if I am wrong.

Answer 3

i must say i disagree, only a great athlete can walk away with a large number of medals. a good athlete is a specialist at one stroke and one set distance, someone who can win the same stroke but different distance is someone with alot of talent, for anyone who has done competitive swimming they will know how hard it is to swim different distances let alone different strokes

Answer 4

Yes, I agree.  It would be like introducing skipping, galloping, running backwards, and other methods of human land movement into track & field.  Swimmers almost always produce the most multiple Olympic medals, because they get to participate so many events relatively similar to each other.  In addition, people from most poor nations don't even have a chance to compete in swimming events, because they don't have the expensive pools necessary to train top swimmers.  So in effect, swimming becomes an event that allows people from the wealthy strata to outdoor more athletic people in terms of medal count.

Answer 5

Yes, Yes, Yes !!! Running is running, they don't have run-backward races, so why have swim-backward races ! A swim race should be just that ' a race', swim any style you want.