There is no way to maintain the integrity of this website and not mention the name Michael Phelps. If you don’t know who Michael Phelps is well, you have either been living in a cave for the past week or have just returned from an alien abduction (if so, I’d like to discuss a feature story for this site). Anyhow, Michael Phelps is the lucky bastard swimmer from the United States who has just won 8 gold medals in a single Olympic game and now has 14 gold medals in his career. I know that this feat represents a lot of hard work and a unbelievable commitment to the sport but still…
Chris Chase from yahoo.com has written some remarkable facts about Phelps. I have updated Chris’s story as of Monday morning August 18.
1) If Michael Phelps were a country he would be tied with the entire country of RUSSIA for gold medal count.
2) In the overall medal count, he would be tied in 16th place with the country of Romania.
3) India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, Mexico and Bangladesh (appx. combined population = 2 billion) have earned a total of four Olympic medals in Beijing. Phelps (appx. population = 1) has eight.
Even Phelps himself has hinted that he might be a lucky bastard:
“Everything had to go perfect. Everything had to fall perfectly into place and I was able to have probably the best week of my life.”
There is no “probably” about it Michael. That was the best week of your life, you lucky bastard.
Apparently, I’m not the only one who think Michael Phelps is lucky. The Daily Telegraph is reporting that a sprint star, Eamon Sullivan, is saying that Phelp’s accomplishment had an element of “lucky” read more here:
http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,24265426-5001023,00.html
Paul
September 1st, 2008