An objective look at the fastest male swimmers at Beijing

50m: Cesar Cielo Filho (Brazil). Eamon Sullivan (Australia), holds the world record.
100m: Alain Bernard (France). Also the world record holder from March 2008.
200m: Michael Phelps (USA). Set a new world record.
400m: Park Tae-Hawn (Korea). Ian Thorpe (Australia), holds the world record.
1500m: Oussama Mellouli (Tunisa). Grant Hackett (Australia), holds the world record.

As far as I can tell, Michael Phelps is a damn good 200m swimmer. He's pretty fast over that distance. So that would mean one individual gold medal, which would be very well deserved.

Usain Bolt, the amazing Jamaican sprinter, set world records in the 100m and 200m sprints. Two individual gold medals. He'd have to be a better athlete than Phelps yeah? I mean Phelps is only fastest over one distance. Bolt is fastest over two distances. In a discipline (athletics) that has a much lower barrier to entry than swimming, so is therefore more competitive.

Of course, Phelps also won a bunch of other medals in events where everyone had to swim slower. He was the fastest of the slow swimmers.

I think this is unfair on Bolt. He should be given the chance to win gold medals by competing at slower speeds too. Perhaps they could run a 100m race where the runners have to hold their hands on their head? Or only run with their right leg and walk with their left leg? Bolt would probably dominate those events too.

Sometimes, I miss writing a sports column in a daily newspaper... oh, and Grant Hackett should totally get the 1500m gold medal. That Tunisian bloke has just come back from an 18 month doping ban, and has never placed in a major 1500m event before. All I say is... DRUG CHEAT. That's all I'm going to say. I"ll leave it up to you to make up your minds.