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Perkins vs Spitz

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GOAT verdictgoatrank.world
SpitzWinner
87.5

Spitz wins: Dominance, Peak, Honours, Statistics

Perkins
86.7

Perkins wins: Longevity

Candidates
Locked to Swimming

Shareable URL · /compare/kieren-perkins-vs-mark-spitz

Time range

Showing full careers. Pick a window to recalculate the selected period.

Category radar

Verdict

Weighted GOAT score
🇺🇸 Mark Spitz
87.5

Spitz leads in 4 of 5 weighted categories. Seven golds and seven world records at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

1. Mark Spitz
87.5
2. Kieren Perkins
86.7

Category breakdown

Season form · Form index per season

Career timeline · Form index per season

Cumulative output season by season — the shape of each career against the other.

GOAT pace tracker

Career stage · GOAT pace

Through season 5 · Form index per season
1. 🇦🇺 Kieren Perkins5 seasons played · career day 2,19072.5 major golds
Setting the pace at this stage
2. 🇺🇸 Mark Spitz5 seasons played · career day 2,55526 major golds
-64.1% vs Perkins at the same stage
Ghost race · career day30100365100018253650
🇦🇺 Perkins00014.5857.92116.63
🇺🇸 Spitz00001535

Careers are aligned at debut, so a rookie's first 5 seasons are measured against the same window in a legend's career — Yamal against Messi at the same age-stage, a tour rookie against Tiger Woods in 1996.

MetricPerkinsRetiredSpitzRetired
Olympic golds29
World Championship golds25
World records433
1500m best (min)14.41
Commonwealth golds4
Olympic medals11
Golds at one Games7
Pan American golds5
Dominance w25%8890
Peak w20%9496
Longevity w20%7470
Honours w20%8890
Statistics w15%9092

Fan vote — data vs the people

GOAT Rank · the data
Spitz87.5
Perkins86.7
The people
Perkins
Spitz

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Make your case for Perkins vs Spitz. The scoring is published in full — if you can point at the pillar or the weight you disagree with, we read it. Read the methodology paper.

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