Michael Phelps says he couldn't race a real shark because it wouldn't swim straight
Phelps on the backlash over his race with a CGI shark: People weren't paying attention
By
Kevin Skiver
•
1 min read
Michael Phelps is sticking to his guns on his televised shark race after viewers were angry that the shark was CGI. Phelps said that viewers that thought he was racing a real shark simply weren't paying attention, and to be honest he's probably right. Most people hear a man is racing a shark and just kind of tune out everything after that.
Turns out “Michael Phelps races a shark” was really just “Michael Phelps swims alone and then compares his time to a shark’s time.”
— Gary Parrish (@GaryParrishCBS) July 24, 2017
Every swimmer watching Phelps vs Shark pic.twitter.com/3hTUXqf7QK
— MICHA🅴L (@ClydeCraddockJr) July 24, 2017
Call me crazy but I thought they were gonna put Phelps up against a real shark not a simulation. I feel robbed. #SharkWeek#PhelpsVsSharkpic.twitter.com/XgdEphkl6m
— Meg Conley (@MegDownSouth) July 24, 2017
Phelps lost to a digital shark. #SharkWeek#PhelpsVsSharkpic.twitter.com/mHQeiUws75
— Joe C. (@HeyJoeC) July 24, 2017
America's collective disappointment when we realized that #PhelpsVsShark is all just science and simulations: pic.twitter.com/bTww7dAWm3
— Lindsey Barr (@simply_lindsey) July 24, 2017
Phelps took to Facebook to defend himself, saying on a live session that "some people just decide not to listen to some of the things that we do, and that's not my fault that you don't do that." It was a Facebook live session that lasted about an hour, where he took questions from viewers. Phelps also reiterated that there was nothing deceptive about the way the event was advertised. "Everything was either presented on air during multiple interviews that I did throughout Shark Week or the beginning of the show," he said.
Discovery also released a brief statement after backlash on the event, saying that "All the promotion, interviews and the program itself made clear that the challenge wasn't a side-by-side race," Discovery said in a statement.
The real problem is seemingly that people heard "Man vs. Shark" and didn't do any digging. It's absolutely true that Phelps never came out and said that he was going to share lanes with a shark. It was a gimmicky event to begin with, and conclusions were drawn based on a tagline. "Man vs. CGI Shark" probably didn't do quite as well with focus groups.
Phelps apologized during the session... sort of. "For those of you who are disappointed, I'm sorry for that," he said. Even though it was a bit of an unapology, it probably wasn't really necessary. Phelps literally getting chased by a shark sounds like some kind of fever dream, and despite the disappointment surrounding the event he seems glad he did it.
Oh, and Phelps' reasoning surrounding not using a real shark was hilarious. "You're not going to get the shark to swim in a straight line." Sure, that's the biggest setback.
