Posted on 07/23/2017 8:51:56 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The most decorated Olympian in history took on the creature in Sunday night's special, but, to the disappointment of some viewers, he was not actually swimming alongside a shark in the water. Retired competitive swimmer Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time with a total of 28 medals, took on a great white shark in a Discovery Channel special on Sunday night.
Did he win?
Phelps vs Shark: Great Gold vs Great White, which helped kick off Discovery Channel's Shark Week programming, found Phelps and a group of scientists working to record the speed of, first, a hammerhead shark and then a great white shark.
"This is something I've been wanting to do for a while," Phelps said of his interest in taking on the challenge.
The team developed a special device to record the sharks' swimming speed. Dubbed a "cutting-edge water vehicle prototype" featuring lightweight carbon fiber, the "pontoon bike" was trailed by bait to entice the shark to follow quickly behind as its speed was measured. First testing a hammerhead, the sea creature's top speed was measured at 15 miles an hour, and it traveled 50 meters in just over 15 seconds.
Compare that to Phelps' speed of just over 5.5 miles an hour when he broke the world record in the butterfly.
"Honestly, my first thought when I saw the shark was, 'There's very little chance for me to beat him,'" Phelps said.
Wearing a monofin to simulate a shark's movements — and to maximize his speed and the volume of water he was able to push with each kick — Phelps swam 50 meters in the ocean off the Bimini coast and came in at 18.7 seconds, with the team comparing his time to those of a hammerhead and a reef shark.
While he didn't beat the hammerhead, which swam the distance in 15.1 seconds, he was able to beat the reef shark by 0.2 seconds, swimming at 6 miles an hour.
Next up: the great white shark, whose top speed was recorded as more than 26 miles per hour (able to swim 100 meters in 36.1 seconds) off the coast of Mossel Bay, South Africa.
Working in Phelps' favor is the fact that sharks can't sustain a high speed and must slow down at times to conserve energy. The team decided to extend the race to 100 meters, given Phelps' ability to sustain top speeds over a long distance, to give him "a swimming chance," as one of the experts put it.
"I've always been an endurance swimmer, and hopefully that will work in my favor," Phelps said.
In addition, he was given a modified monofin in an effort to improve his speed even more. However, the visibility in the South African waters was not nearly as clear as that in Bimini. And the water was a lot colder, at 56 degrees, or 24 degrees colder than the water in an Olympic pool.
"I'm high maintenance when it comes to cold water," Phelps said. "I don't like it."
Making it more challenging, Phelps was wearing a wetsuit that was only 1 millimeter thick. Sharks, meanwhile, are able to raise the temperature of their muscles up to 25 degrees higher than their surroundings.
By the way, in case you were wondering, Phelps did not race side-by-side with the sharks; rather, images the sharks were displayed alongside Phelps as he swam using CGI technology. Some viewers expressed disappointment on Twitter that he wasn't actually swimming in the water with the shark: "Michael Phelps is racing a CGI shark. The world is yet again a meme," wrote one.
But, noted Dr. Tristan Guttridge, a scientist leading the effort: "Clearly, we can't put Michael in one lane and a shark in the far lane. We have to do simulation. We'll use our speed data that we've (collected) in all our testing."
Meanwhile, Phelps worked on a new stroke as he practiced for the race. "I'm gonna have to swim, and act, like a shark," Phelps said ahead of the race, as he was seen swimming what looked like a sideways butterfly stroke.
Added Guttridge: "This is like the tortoise and the hair, where Michael is the tortoise, steady as he goes, consistently in the race, while the white shark is slow and cruising with bursts of speed."
So who won?
Phelps swam the 100 meters in 38.1 seconds, while the shark did the same length in 36.1 seconds, beating Phelps by two seconds.
At the start of the race, Phelps reached a speed of 8.8 miles an hour, swimming faster than the shark, but then the shark took the lead at the 25-meter mark, and Phelps was unable to overcome the creature's lead.
"Before I dove in, I knew how cold it was going to be, and I knew that for me, as a swimmer, we don't swim in this, and it basically just shocked your entire body," he said. "And I have this little tiny wetsuit on, so it's absolutely freezing."
But Phelps isn't a sore loser: "I think it's impressive to see an animal survive this (cold water) and still have a top speed of 25 miles an hour."
Thank you and Hollywood Reporter for saving me an hour worth of time.
A “jumping the shark” moment for Phelps?
It’s was pure horse crap.
He raced a pitiful CGI shark and lost.
Discovery does some real dumb stuff sometimes.
So long as I have a head start no shark would be able to find me in the brown cloud of my wake.
I've always heard those sentient hairs were a *itch to beat in an endurance race.
I’ve had occasion to think I had large sharks swim beneath me, and if I could have run across the surface of the water I would have. The impulse to swim like hell is very strong, but you don’t want to attract attention. They turned out to be rays caught between the shore and a new sandbar formed in a storm, but all I saw was three large dark shapes going back and forth beneath me. Lifeguards thought they were sharks too, I could hear them on the beach, which didn’t help as far as my reaction.
Yeah, either he’s bored or needs money.
Lol.
I don’t have to beat the shark,just the guy swimming next to me.
At least he didn’t jump it.
I have a deal with sharks. I don’t go in their water, they don’t come down my street.
The older I get, the less interested I become in entering the food chain. I’m starting to prefer staying where I’m the alpha predator.
Might be mostly from boredom. Mike Phelps is a world class swimmer, but from my observation, he has very little charisma. The screen is simply blank when the subject is not swimming. He’s gotten a little better over time.
That is not a crime, but it puts one at a disadvantage when being interviewed or spoken with on the air. His whole life had been wrapped around the competitions.
Maybe he never had much of a social life.
I’ve heard other others, such as Christina Yamaguchi(Olympian Figure Skater) make such remarks about her disciplined upbringing.
Ha! I suggested the shark would be computer generated on a thread back when the show was first announced. Thanks for proving me right.
I doubt it...he better stay out of legal difficulty, he can't keep up with the 'Sharks' (Lawyers).
What a gyp to find out he wasn’t swimming from the sharks, but guess he would have to be high to do that
You can only do so many ideas for Shark week. We are down to Sharknado and this.
Swam faster backwards than I think I ever have forward one time in the Bahamas. Had a Barracuda swimming in my general direction when I was snorkeling. Wasn’t about to lose sight of him...luckily he decided to go elsewhere.
You’re welcome.
I shoulda known.
Gotta stop letting Discovery sucker me in to stupid junk.
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