• Follow us on Twitter @buckeyeplanet and @bp_recruiting, like us on Facebook! Enjoy a post or article, recommend it to others! BP is only as strong as its community, and we only promote by word of mouth, so share away!
  • Consider registering! Fewer and higher quality ads, no emails you don't want, access to all the forums, download game torrents, private messages, polls, Sportsbook, etc. Even if you just want to lurk, there are a lot of good reasons to register!

Michael Phelps - How many gold medals in Beijing?

Jump to latest Follow Reply
Sort by date Sort by votes
SNIPER26;1231231; said:
He's got the reach of a 9 foot tall grizzly bear.
Click to expand...

Built for swimming

Physical traits that make U.S. Olympian Michael Phelps ideal for the sport:
Head
Detests losing but isn't afraid of failure. Unrivaled grit and tenacity.
Arms
For most people, height and wingspan are similar. But Phelps' wingspan is 6-foot-7, 3 inches longer than his height.
Upper body
An unusually long torso helps him stay high in the water.
Legs
Freakishly short for a 6-4 man. He has an inseam of 32 inches. The body below hip level is what tends to drag in water, creating resistance.
Feet
In swimming, the bigger, the better. Phelps has size 14, but his hyperflexibility allows him to flex his feet about 15 degrees above average, until they're almost parallel with his shins. His feet function as big flippers.
 
Upvote 0
It will be interesting to see how the protest works out - or what the basis can even be in an automated event. But I have to say after watching it several times I still don't understand how he touched first.
 
Upvote 0
Oh8ch;1231258; said:
It will be interesting to see how the protest works out - or what the basis can even be in an automated event. But I have to say after watching it several times I still don't understand how he touched first.
Click to expand...
They already ruled on it and turned it down. I guess they're saying the touch pad lies, but the touch pad don't lie. I suppose you could claim the moving water caused it to go off early but if that could happen it would happen a lot more.

Underwater view showed it a lot clearer than the one from above. A hundredth of a second is pretty much impossible to tell by human eye anyway.
 
Upvote 0
FWIW, they did a video review. It looked to me like the other guy came up just a hair short on his last stroke and kind of floated the last few centimeters into the wall, while Phelps just slipped by him with his condor reach.
 
Upvote 0
Lance Armstrong is the only other athlete I've ever seen who can get whatever he wants or needs whenever he wants or needs it.

I keep hearing people compare him to Tiger Woods, but Tiger is not even on the same plane when it comes to dominance. Tiger is perhaps the greatest front-runner of all time, but I've never seen him come from behind the way Phelps has.

This one involved a lot more luck than some of the others, but his ability to let the field set the pace when he wants to and then turn it on and take it away is amazing to me.
 
Upvote 0
Very interesting pictures (eight) on S/I site showing finish frame by frame:

Phelps' Miracle Finish - Phelps Frame-By-Frame - Photos - SI.com

Here are three (#2, #4, & #5) of the eight:

Phelps made a critical decision in the final meters to attempt another half-stroke while Serbia's Milorad Cavic (right) tried to glide to the finish.



Cavic was inches from stopping Phelps' quest for eight gold medals as the American reached over the water for his final half-stroke.



Phelps brought his hands down through the water and touched the wall .01 seconds before Cavic finished his glide to the wall, swiping the gold medal and tying Mark Spitz' record of seven golds at one Olympics.
 
Upvote 0
I watched the race live. When he was so far back at the turn, I thought he was one race too many. That finish will be Olympic lore.

One wonders, as much as that last half of the race took, can he reach deep enough and finish the task?
 
Upvote 0
Steve19;1231490; said:
I watched the race live. When he was so far back at the turn, I thought he was one race too many. That finish will be Olympic lore.

One wonders, as much as that last half of the race took, can he reach deep enough and finish the task?
Click to expand...

He may (or may not) be fortunate that his last race is a relay so he only has to complete twenty five percent of the task. Seventy five percent of the race will be how the other three guys do.

th_swim.gif
 
Upvote 0
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top