Every summer millions of viewers (over 53 million last year) tune into Discovery Channel to watch its now 27 year running week long annual event series known as 'Shark Week'. The big event for Sunday July 23rd 2017 was for Michael Phelps to race a great white shark in an event entitled "Phelps vs Shark: Great Gold vs Great White"! In this event champion swimmer and multi-gold metal winner Michael Phelps took on the challenge to beat one of the ocean's deadliest predator's having spectator's either glued to their television sets, or perhaps setting their DVR boxes to 'catch' this race! Now countless onlooker's all across social media pages are stunned, some even outraged at this hard to love race in which many distraught are calling a 'hoax'. So what went wrong?
After a daunting appearance of Olympic Medalist Phelps prior to the event as he gave an interview stating, "I don't think that I'm scared, but I don't really like swimming in the open waters. I was programmed to look at a black line. And that is what I did for 20 years and out here, there is just pure blackness underneath you." Still seemingly terrified in preparation it was much buildup for what the majority of Shark Week fans were sold with false hopes of anticipation to be an actual death defying race. Many feel mislead as if we were hooked in on false bait. Granted none of us expected for Phelps to get into the water elbow to fin with the giant great white shark, but perhaps a cage dividing the two could have pleased many now enraged viewers.
I am amongst one of these disappointed folks being a fan of sporting events, both Summer and Winter Olympic games, Michael Phelps and of course the iconic Shark Week. This despondency is not due to the world famous aquanaut's loss to the great white. The real washout here was the manner in which the race was conducted. With simulations and drones in a series of species of sharks that are tracked first of which being The Caribbean Reef Shark. The team of shark trackers captures a steam burst from a reef shark of 20.45 miles per hour, then the team tracks down a hammer head shark at 15 miles per hour.
The production crew then puts Phelps into a Monofin dropping him into the waters of Bimini in The Bahamas, turning who they referred to just moments prior as "The world's fastest swimming human" into a merman. Granted Phelps did get into the water with a hammer head and a reef shark and placed in second after the reef shark ran out of steam; so did this Steemit Steamer.
Sure Shark Week has brought us some classic pieces, one of the most infamous being the 'Sharknado' franchise whose success astonished pretty much everyone involved in its production as it has now reached a cult classic status even reaching this year's Comic-Con with 'Sharknado 5'. Still that said, even with all of the buildup and shark professionals lowering Phelps into the water in a large protective cage, that was about as close as this swimmer would come to the Great White.
Still with the use of decoy as bait they merely gaged for and aimed for the top speed which relied heavily on an operation of three boats. Of course, all with the use of bait the team eventually captures the Great White's speed. After the shark performs the 100 meter his time then to beat becomes 36.1 seconds. Phelps comes in second place at 38.1 seconds and although it would appear that Phelps and the shark were racing side by side, this was just a CGI trick and a simulation of all things.
At the end of the race a very cold Phelps from the frigid waters, wrapped in space blankets continued to make excuses for his lack of speed. In the end Phelps called the experience, "A dream come true." Yet this stunt was anything but true. It was at best a complete farce. So Shark Week viewers Michael Phelps race against a Great White Shark remains just that; a dream or perhaps more of a hellish nightmare.