Greatest Olympian ever....??

[R1Geezer]

OK numbers of golds at a games is of course Phelps but for that title I think you need to span a generation, step up the one and only Sir Steve R. 5 games 5 golds and in an event that takes supreme fitness. Others have more medals and I think the record is 6 golds in 6 games but that's in fencing. Anyway waht's your view? Sir Steve is the gaffer for me.

[jno]

How about Rebecca Romero - two medals but in totally different sports (rowing silver in 2004, cycling gold in 2998). To reach those standards in two entirely different sports seems amazing to me, much much tougher than being able to run both 100m and 200m.

[jno]

2998? Bit premature there... 2008

[ELVIS68]

Daley Thompson

Decathlon is much more demanding than rowing a boat

[R1Geezer]

how many consecutive olympics then ELVIS? 1 decathlon where all ten events would be beaten by a good club athletes. Sorry mate don't cut it!

[Skyline D]

Would have to disagree with jno there. What Romero achieved was tremendous undeniably but as a top athlete to begin with they are both physical fitness sports. All she did was adapt a different skill set to it and in an even more minority sport (how many countries actually compete in the olympic track cycling?).

I'm not knocking her at all but I don't think it comes close to matching the achievements of Redgrave (not sure what the relevance of the 100m and 200m remark is as he was a rower?).

I don't think these things should necessarily be about number of golds either. Due to the similarlity of events and programme spread it's much easier for swimmers and cyclists in particular to go for multiple medals than for most other sports.

[jno]

that's true, Skyline, and that's sort of what I was getting at. I wasn't having a dig at Redgrave, just at the idea that golds in two fairly closely related disciplines - I was thinking of running 100m and 200m, but cycling and swimming would do as well - are as impressive as golds in quite different sports. I don't think rowing and cycling are really that close - they do require physical fitness and stamina (as do many sports) but involve different parts of the body and different regimes. To do both well would be difficult; to be the best in the world at both is pretty remarkable.

However, to keep on winning over a long period, as Redgrave did, is also very impressive.

[ELVIS68]

3 Olympics with 2 gold medals actually