Who's Bigger

Philip Hersh, a native Bostonian, has been the Olympic sports writer for the Chicago Tribune for nearly 25 years now and he has covered 15 Olympics (nine winter, six summer).

Earlier this week, he posted a 'Globetrotting' piece wherein he contrasts the global events that take place in each sport about a year before the Games. In it he concedes the Michael Phelps, even though no longer the best swimmer in the U.S., remains the most recognizable Olympic figure in this country.

But he writes that Phelps' world-wide renown doesn't hold a candle to Usain Bolt. His rationale is solid, track and field simply has much further reach than swimming. In comparing each sport's world championship results from this summer, he found that medal winners came from 41 countries in track, more than twice the number of swimming.

And where places like Africa, South America and the Caribbean were not well represented in swimming, they were frequent inhabitants of the medals' podium in Daegu.

Hersh concludes:

All those stats are just a way to make a simple point: most of the world doesn't give a flying fish about swimming.

Nearly all the world cares about its fastest man.

By the way, Bolt has one inch and 12 pounds on Phelps.