91Èȱ¬

is good at the freestyle, right? Now, it's called "freestyle" cos you're free to swim any way you want. So, how come no one swims breaststroke or backstroke or ?

Well, cos that would mean you'd be going too slow to win.

Now, if you're not as fast as Phelps over 200 metres then don't worry. You might be able to beat him if you both try to swim slower!

That's right, make him do a bobbing up and down action and you could beat him at slow swimming (or breaststroke as they call it). Does anyone else think this is barmy?

Even more ludicrous is that there is a butterfly competition at all. Apparently, it was originally a rule-bending breaststroke and then they made it an event in its own right in 1956.

It's the hardest one to learn because no one in their right mind would ever imagine swimming that way unless they were disguising themselves as a for the purposes of some potty 91Èȱ¬ wildlife programme.

Brilliantly, though, once you've got four distinct but not necessarily fast ways of getting from one end to another you can make up an event that includes all four of them and call it a medley. And the medley makes the likes of Phelps even more medally, if you get my meaning.

Now, I'm sure there are dedicated people up and down this country and across the world who'll argue that these different strokes are very distinct from one another and require different techniques and blah-bluh-bluh-blah-blah-blah!

But why in God's name have a swimming race which demands you go slower than you actually could do?

Transpose this to athletics and there's all sorts of events that should be included: ; the 100 metres hop; the all-fours steeplechase; the forward rolling 1500m. Then of course you can mix them all up into a weird medley and get some more medals to give away.

Actually, athletics does have its potty exception - . Everyone knows a bunch of blokes wiggling their backsides away for 50km like someone's left a toffee in their gussets is just plain lunacy.

The only excuse for walking quickly is cos you're in a school corridor carrying scissors and the headmaster's told you not to run.

In fact, what's wrong with the sack race or the race, except for the fact that they'll be sports designers eager to refine and redesign the perfect sack and it'll be come a logo-loaded bag and not the hessian piece of threadbare cack it should be?

And can you imagine the wind tunnel tests that'll be done to find the most aerodynamic egg? Maybe we'll pass on them - but there's got to be a case for the three-legged race hasn't there?

Swimming has simply made up a load of events which means that there are bound to be exceptional talents like Phelps who look like they're the greatest ever cos they leave the Olympics looking like they've been rooting around in a gangsta rapper's jewellery box for the past week.

Fact is, the likes of Redgrave, and Carl Lewis have achieved just as much, it's just that couldn't wangle a pedalo pairs event out of the IOC or he and Pinsent would be out of sight by now.

And Oerter wasn't taken seriously when he asked if he could have one gold medal for chucking his discus after spinning (rotational discus), one gold medal for chucking it back over his head (reverse discus), one for throwing it from his teeth (gobby-style discus) and another one for choosing which one out of the previous three he preferred (freestyle discus).

Swimming races should be over set distances and it should all be freestyle. If that means you've got some freak of nature who can doggy-paddle faster than the British cycling team with their lycra on fire than it's fair play to him. In fact, why have the IOC overlooked the doggy-paddle - it's scandalous.

In short, a swimming race is everyone jump in and the first to the other end wins, regardless of how you get there.

Now some of you will be thinking I'm getting at medallion man Phelps, but I'm not. If they took out all the butterflies and medleys, he'd still have a neckful of and he'd still have ordinary mortals gasping at him, especially that incredible underwater wriggle he does that makes your average emperor penguin look like a lump of concrete.

Maybe in London 2012 we can invent some new events that we're guaranteed to be best at (until we teach it to the rest of the Commonwealth and then that'll be that).

Actually, we don't need to invent them. Welly-wanging, cheese-rolling, shove ha'penny, bar billiards... bring on the medals for Team GB.

In the meantime, we will enjoy Phelps's achievements, but greatest Olympian ever? Difficult to say, but he's definitely the most exciting thing to come out of the water since .