Now maybe they'll shut up about Phelps (I'm not really watching the Olympics--maybe an hour total so far--team handball is much more interesting if you watch a whole game in 4 minutes online). Sure, he's a great athlete. But he's also lucky to be in a sport that has a bajillion slightly tweaked competitions.

Usain Bolt would win as many medals if there was the 100 meter dash just going as fast as you can. The 100 meter dash running backwards. The 100-meter four man relay. The 100 meter dash running with your arms over your head. The 100 meter dash where you wiggle your shoulders while running. The 100 meter dash while trying to read a newspaper held just slightly too far away. The 100 meter dash where you run around the track clockwise instead of counter-clockwise.

Who can get from one end of the pool fastest is an interesting competition. Who can get from one end of the pool fastest in a slightly slower way is not.

A valid point, but from a different perspective, the similarities in the events is nothing new and still no other swimmer in the history of the Olympics has ever managed to get as many medals.

Which clearly makes him the most accomplished (and thus arguably greatest) Olympic swimmer in history. Just not so clearly the greatest Olympian period which is what people are hanging on him. I mean, can you really cleanly argue that he's a "better Olympian" than, say, May/Walsh who have yet to lose a single SET, let alone match in their Olympic career?

I doubt there could ever be a quantitative "best ever" athlete so for me calling Phelps by that monicker falls under the general category of puffery which in the celebrations of the moment is fine by me.

If I remember correctly, one point of differentiation with Mark Spitz was that he won all seven of his golds in individual competition. Listening to all the talk last night about how he told his teammates to "Just get me the lead" which he proceeded to hold without expanding is an odd way to celebrate an individual achievement.

You remember incorrectly. Spitz won 3 golds in relays in 1972, the year he won 7 gold medals. That's the same number of golds that came from relays for Phelps in 2008, so he actually won MORE individual swims in the record year (5 vs. 4) than Spitz.

9 of his 14 golds are for individual races. 11 of his 19 overall medals are individual.

But we must point out that Spitz achieved his accomplishment without depilatories.

I think that settles that argument.

Puffery in moments of celebration is generally lame (at least to me, when there is something legitimately worth recognition, inflating it even further cheapens it). The fact that most of Phelps's medals are in events that shouldn't exist (by my objective criteria) means the mere fact that he gets to have them is already sufficient puffery.

I demand that trap and skeet shooting have 50-, 75-, 100-, 125-, and 150-shot competitive versions so that Kim Rhodes has a chance to show she can be equally dominant.

But really, get rid of all of the swim events other than freestyle (or create events where the other strokes make sense as superior to freestyle). Also, get rid of weight class differentiations.

Who cares how much a 145-pound man can lift unless it is more than the 300-pound man. We don't have "the 100 meter dash for people who can't run as fast." Who cares which of the 113-pound men can win a fight against other 113-pound men. We don't have an Olympic-basketball tournament just for people under 5' 10".

And get rid of gender segregated competitions where there is no reason for the segregation. Shooting: unless there is some physiological reason a woman can't aim a gun as well as a man that I'm unaware of.

Also, eliminate any event where you're expected to wear makeup. Any event with subjective scoring should be strongly considered for elimination. Events that are just glorified child abuse (gymnastics: you're failing on all counts here) should just go away.

The archery coverage bugs me. I've seen maybe TWO shots where they show the distance and trajectory of the shots. Everything else is closeups of faces and closeups of targets. That's not the interesting part!

Hmm. There was some way in which Spitz's achievement was supposedly purer and better than Phelps's. Maybe it's just that he's a Jew. Which is plenty.

As for events to be cut, swimming is questionable television at best with the competitors being underwater with their faces hidden. I could happily get rid of relays as I don't think the touch and dive is nearly as dramatic as the baton pass in track. I could probably also get rid of the 200 in both swimming and running. I would keep all the strokes and maybe bring back the side stroke so my mother could compete.

Weight classes in the fighting sports and weight lifting are classic and must be kept. Medals for John Tate and Tyrell Biggs but not for Sugar Ray Leonard and Oscar De La Hoya? Or Cassius Clay, who fought as a light heavyweight? I don't think so. As for weight lifting, while I grew up on Vasily Alexeyev, the lower weight classes lift a higher percentage of their body weight than the super heavyweights, so you could just as easily make an argument for getting rid of the fat guys on the theory that they actually achieve less.