OF GOLD, SILVER AND BRONZE THIS YEAR, BRONZE IS BEST

Michael Phelps is well on his way. He has already smashed the Olympic Gold Medal record of nine, shared by his fellow swimmer Mark Spitz and a few great athletes outside of swimming, and is well on his way to surpassing the Spitz record of seven Gold Medals in one Olympic year. World records are falling meet after meet, often surpassed by more than one of the swimmers. Is it the training? The slick new body-compacting swimsuits? Relativity slowed watches? Whatever the answer, to find the greatest, as we suggested in other sports, these athletes should be compared to their competitors this year and earlier athletes should be laid up against others of their years before a best is determined, and that best will be the one whose percentage of superiority over same year competitors is greatest. Phelps has been winning his single competitions by an astonishing average of over two seconds. The usual separation is measured in hundredths of a second.

In Women’s Gymnastics, the American team, with a real shot at individual as well as team Gold Medals, fell victim to a number of costly mistakes, something that could happen to any group of athletes on a given day, and took the team Silver Medal, second to the great Chinese team (which probably fudged some of the ages of its members). Coming away with silver in world class competition is a great accomplishment.

But perhaps the most astonishing accomplishment this year goes to the American Men’s Gymnastic team. In late July, injury cost it the services of Paul Hamm, the greatest world class gymnast, and two days before the opening ceremonies Paul’s brother Morgan went down with an ankle injury. It was right for what was left of the team to march in the opening ceremonies, but all that should have been expected of them was to finish that march. Instead, Jonathan Horton, Justin Spring, Kevin (actually Kai Wen in Chinese, which sounds like Kevin) Tan, Raj Bhavsar, of Indian origin, and Sasha Artemev, the last three quintessentially American as the children of immigrants and an immigrant himself, got the job done. The immigrant himself, Artemev, born in Russia, scored 15.350 in the last American event on the pommel horse, assuring the Bronze for the team.

We’re doing splendidly over all at the 2008 Olympics, but that Bronze Medal is pure Gold.