General

Michael Phelps loses race to shark, says ‘I don’t like taking silver’

July 24, 2017 10:54 am

Retired American swimmer Michael Phelps took on a great white shark in a Discovery Channel special on Sunday night.

To the disappointment of viewers, Phelps did not actually swim in the same waters as the shark.

The shark was forced to go after a prey for the distance of the race and its speed was calculated and compared to Phelps’ effort.

At the end of the day, the human swam 100 meters in 38.1 seconds while it took the shark 36.1 seconds, beating the great Olympian by two seconds.

“I don’t like taking silver but I’ll take one to a Great White,” Phelps said after the race. “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.

“And I have this little tiny wetsuit on, so it’s absolutely freezing. I think it’s impressive to see an animal survive this (cold water) and still have a top speed of 25 miles an hour.

“It was so exhilarating. I wasn’t really expecting to absolutely win against a shark. I wanted to get in and give myself the best opportunity to see how fast I could go, to see how I could compare to the high speed of some of the animals that we have in the ocean.

“We raced 100 metres. It’s hard when you have low visibility, and we did set up a lane line to make it look like there was a pool, but it is challenging to see straight and see where you’re going in water like that.

“We weren’t side by side. The challenge of trying to get a White to swim in a straight line was difficult, because when a White attacks a seal on the surface they come from under the surface to build speed to be able to get that natural breach that we all see from Great Whites.

“But I think with some of the tests that we were running out there on the boat, we were able to see what they can do.

“Obviously these guys are at home. They have the chance to swim in the ocean every single day in depths that some of us may never reach.

Phelps, who has 23 Olympic gold medals, took to Twitter to call for a rematch, but this time, in “warmer water”.