It took a combination of skill and luck. You can be really good or really lucky in sports to be successful. It's safe to say that he was both in 2008.
I didn't see any "luck" in any of his 8 races. In every one either he or his teammates fought to the end and out swam the competition.
I'd wager that his 1/100th of a second victory qualifies as a nice bit of luck. An absolutely amazing run though. Wow.
How is there any luck involved in freakin' swimming? Its not like there's any factor involved other than the guy and the water. No lucky bounces or turf monsters involved here, friend.
That .gif makes a difference - no probs with that!! In Australia we only saw the overhead superslowmo and that looks like Phelps loses by half a second... I assume the protest was lodged on that overhead footage? (I don't have it - if you can find it, it looks pretty funny!)
I just voted, and I said NO. I said it RESOUNDINGLY, with a great deal of BASS in my voice. The walls vibrated and everything. One day, I will win all the gold medals in the world for the sexy olympics.
Winning a race by 1/100th of a second, especially when 99.9 percent of the race was led by your opponent, I'd say is a little bit lucky. Sure his talent and determination got him to that point. But look at his face after he won; he knew it. It doesn't devalue his accomplishment at all. In any sport you have to benefit from a little bit of good fortune to succeed (22 in a row anyone). For these close races (the 100 fly and the 4x100 free) you change any number of things (their start, the turns, the intensity of the waves, a suit ripping, water in goggles, a slight break in form, a brush with the lane dividers, etc) and it could be the difference between one and two.
I'd say a little luck was involved. Everybody knows the guy is very talented, I don't think anybody would argue that but a little luck was involved.
As a swimmer myself, I know that the decision to take that extra half stroke in the last couple of meters is something you have to negotiate quite often at the end of a close race. What it boils down to for me is that Phelps made the decision to take the half stroke and the other guy didn't. Simple as that. No different than making the split second decision to pump fake your defender in the air and take a step in for the game winning jumper, as far as I see it. And I would never consider that luck.
Phelps is only lucky in that he wasn't swimming against blue fin tuna... there was no luck in what he did to finish in a shorter time than his opponents.
And what if Cavic chose to take another half stroke as well? What if his teammates didn't have the performance of their lives? Remember in the 4x100 free the weak link was considered Cullen Jones but he did what he needed to do to keep the team in the race. Well what if they chose to go with someone else instead of Jones and they were 2/100th's of a sec slower? What about Brandon Hansen; he's been having a tough year and didn't even medal in his only individual event...the Brandon Hansen that has struggled or the Hansen that was a world record holder could have showed up to the race. There's just so many many things that have to break your way. And if everything didn't unfold exactly the way it did for Phelps, I don't know if he'd have 8 gold medals. Phelps has even said that himself.
Exactly. Like I said nobody is doubting Phelps skill level and talent but you will have a hard time convincing me that a little luck was not involved.
