Tell me if the fire is back in his belly after this Michael Phelps quote to Rick Reilly of ESPN:
"...I'm so sick of the water. Even when I go to the beach with my friends. They're like, 'Why won't you get in?' And I'm like, 'Do you have any IDEA how much of my life I've spent in the water?'..."The ESPN article is really resonates how faraway from the pool he wants to get.
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These are the most unmeasured words he has ever uttered. You can't open up a swim school saying stuff like this. You can't inspire kids to jump in a pool and expect them to swim 5-hours a day and/or represent their country in the Olympics with words like these.
I am so sorry that he feels this way for it is more fun to watch an athlete who loves the game.
17 comments:
You can absolutely open up a swim school saying things like that. Go to his swim school's website - "Building Comfort, Confidence and Feel For the Water." He's not recruiting kids onto some National Team feeder program, this is just getting kids to learn to swim and to be safe in the water.
Hate on Phelps all you want for this outward contempt for what the sport of swimming is at the elite level, but don't hate on him for trying to help kids learn to swim.
Phelps probably does need a break.
I agree with Tony on the complaining part. Many kids/young adults tend to do the same - bitch, moan, complain like they are doing someone else a favor by continuing.
Stop swimming! Some keep swimming because they have goals THEY want to attain.
"Do you have any IDEA how much of my life I've spent in the water?"
WHO CARES!!! LOOK AT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU HAVE MADE!
There are many, many, many people who spend many more hours working their asses off and are still struggling financially.
Well, his complaint was a bit more focused than that. If someone was, I don't know, a disgruntled train conductor or something and was asked to go to a toy train museum on his one day off that person might be all "DO YOU KNOW MUCH TIME I SPEND IN TRAINS!?!?!!"
Doesn't have anything to do with how much money he's made.
But it does have to do with how much money he has made and how much money he wants to make.
If an actor says, "I hate acting" all over the press; that will distract his audience when they attend said actor's performance.
When our metaphorical audience sees that actor on stage or screen, they will see the actor who hates his job and not the character he/she is trying to portray. Those off-stage comments or "shenanigans" if you want to hold up Lindsay Lohan as an example, make it nearly impossible to be immersed in that actor's performance and consequently in re world terms, they become unemployable.
Will Phelps talking the way he has these past four years I am presuming we will see a marginally prepared Michael Phelps who is only swimming to fulfill a contract or two
When a champion is paid to be a champion, he shows up like a champion and acts professional even if it is just for his audience.
I'm gonna split this into two comments. Wouldn't wanna get cut off again and lose all my pretty HTML tags.
Remember Hugh Grant? Charming little actor, was in a bunch of li'l romantic comedies in the last decade. He's been vocal about since 2001. I don't think audiences were too distracted by that - his next five movies made an average of over $220 million worldwide. And he even had a bit of a "Lohan moment," the Divine Brown prostitution incident in 1995. Your "metaphorical audience" didn't seem to care. Hell, Angelina Jolie was weird as all hell - wearing vials of Billy Bob Thorton's blood around her neck, makin' out with her brother - but I never really thought about that stuff while watching Tomb Raider. The whole point of acting is that you forget who these actors are and, while watching a movie/TV show/whatever you only consider them as their characters - people seeing The Avengers aren't spending the whole movie trying to figure out why The Human Torch is running around pretending to be Captain America. That whole acting thing you brought up is a really strained and fairly poor analogy, I'mma move on. (To the next comment!)
As for Hugh Grant - let me tell you a little story. I am one person removed from this. When Angelina Jolie did Tomb Raider she had to sign a contract stating she would not drink or smoke during the filming of the movie and that was the only way they could get insurance for the film. the drinking was the crux of this. j
Soliciting straight sex from a hooker, as distasteful at is it does not make a actor an insurance risk. Showing up late, getting arrested for drugs, DUI among other things has made Lindsay Lohan unemployable.
As for advertising. Endorsers like Phelps are selected based on their tribe, followers or popularity. If I was the marketing director for Speedo I would be praying that he cares how well he will do in London and hope that he rocks it but with the stuff coming out of his mouth these fina days it is as if he is beginning to qualify his losses all ready.
If he swims the 200-free, there is a chance he can be completely shut out even.
Plenty of people don't like their job including tons of professional sportspeople. It's up to him if he wants to risk any sponsorships or media image by doing this as well. He doesn't owe it to anyone to give them some perfect image.
He's almost certainly going to win gold medals at this Olympics which is incredible after all of these years and I am amazed that he hasn't burnt out already. He's far bigger and greater than you think. He knows how to prioritise and win and his honesty and normalcy is somewhat refreshing, plus he has people talking as I can see.
Anyway, lots of swimmers have quit or talked about wanting to retire by his age. I wonder why I never see you ripping into Ian Thorpe. Just because he looks good and sucks up to the media?
I love Ian Thorpe and I use to love Phelps too. Go back in time on this blog and look up how complimentary I was towards Phelps pre-2008.
Then watch the gradual shift starting with the 2009 World Champs through to Mar Nostrum and finally Pan Pacs whereas the stuff he starting saying really annoyed not just me but some of my readers.
Well if MP really doesn't like his job anymore, I hope at least he can find inspiration to give his legion of fans one last, memorable performance in London.
No, you don't like Phelps for shallow reasons. Image. You like Thorpe so much better for those shallow reasons even though the actions say something different.
I don't consider good sportsmanship, proper manners, good communication skills and the ability to refrain from such vices as a strippers, poker, bongs, and the excessive use of alcohol to be "shallow reasons" for disliking Michael Phelps.
That Lohan insurance stuff really isn't what you were talking about before - you were describing how an actor's poor behavior influences an audience reactions to actors. Which is fairly untenable.
And I agree that there's a definite possibility Phelps won't medal in the 200 Free, it's an absolutely stacked field. I didn't think he had a shot in hell of doing so at last year's World Champs, but he still found a way to sneak in for 2nd. I just don't see anything in his recent performances that show he'll be as ill-prepared as you expect.
To be honest with you, Tony, I agree that Phelps is probably a bit of sh*t. When he's not in training, there's definitely a very disturbing pattern.
He's kind of swimmings answer to Diego Maradona: Impossibly talented, incredibly dedicated and the best that ever was... But God's cruel joke was to put that talent in that man.
Long & short, he may a reprobate but he's a real fast one and I won't bet against him in London.
Junker, yes, an actor's public persona especially when vile or unmeasured is a big deal to studios.
Tom Cruise had to go to "actor's prison" for a bit till he make amends to Brooke Shields and others even those his comments regarding her "being unemployable" for being on psych drugs may have had a tiny essence of truth to them. He nearly lost the Mission Impossible franchise and was grounded a bit till he got busy back-pedaling.
Another example: "30-Rock" actor, Tracey Morgan, almost "sentenced to life" in "actor's prison" for his anti-gay rant on stage.
More to come on this issue a couple months after his retirement.
I'm sure it is important to studios - but that wasn't your initial point about audiences. People either don't care or don't know about a lot of unfortunate things public people do. Hence, Chris Brown still has a career. (Just performed on the Billboard Awards this week! Good for him, that douchetard.)
Many swimmers party hard. Amanda Beard's autobiography claimed that she and Ryk Neethling took drugs. (Neethling says it isn't true but, on balance, I believe her.)
Phelps isn't very good at hiding it. Tiger was great at hiding it for years, wasn't he, so I don't take people at face value. I think Phelps is sporting and I don't think he can help his poor communication skills. This blog is too harsh on him. Be happy he's going to be bringing gold medals back for the USA.
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