Discovery Responds To Tweeters Who Are Pissed That Michael Phelps Wasn't Eaten By a Shark People were disappointed Sunday night after finding out that the Olympic swimmer was racing a computer-generated shark.
By Rose Leadem
Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.
Sunday night viewers saw the results of a much-hyped race pitting a man with 23 gold medals against a shark with 300 teeth.
Sort of.
Discovery made a splash on Shark Week's kickoff, promising a race between Olympic swimmer powerhouse Michael Phelps and a great white shark. While the set up had visions of Phelps and the world's most perfect killing machine climbing into a pool together, that is not what happened. Instead, 57 minutes into the hour-long show, featured ecologist Tristan Gutteridge informed viewers, "Clearly, we can't put Michael in one lane and a white shark in the far lane. We're gonna have to do a simulation."
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Completing the race in 36.1 seconds, the CGI-generated "shark" ended up beating Phelps, who had a time of 38.1 seconds. The internet went nuts. Not that he climbed out of the water with a losing time, but that he climbed out of the water without losing any limbs.
Responding to the flood of outraged Tweeters, Laurie Goldberg, group EVP public relations for Discovery, Animal Planet and Science, told Entrepreneur, "We loved all the science and fun behind Phelps vs Shark. There are some who would have been happier if there was a shark in the pool, but we hear they are allergic to chlorine."
Here are some of the responses:
Me pretending to be ok with Michael Phelps not racing a real shark pic.twitter.com/QnCF98NfBB
— Gabi Palamone (@Yo_Gabi_Gabi__) July 24, 2017
Michael Phelps not PHYSICALLY racing a shark but still having a tv special is equal to having a meeting when it coulda been an email :/
— MacKenzie Huneke (@Huenke) July 24, 2017
Kind of feel like we could've built some shark-cage style lanes and really pit the two against each other. Need to shoot higher next year
— Alyssa Lang (@AlyssaLang) July 24, 2017
When Michael Phelps said he was gonna race a shark this is how I pictured it happening #SharkWeek pic.twitter.com/GiEfJssNhL
— Ryan Homler (@RHomler) July 24, 2017
When u realize Phelps isn't actually racing side by side with a great white shark... #SharkWeek pic.twitter.com/popKv38jba
— Michael Pezzetta (@mpezzetta13) 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 #PhelpsVsShark pic.twitter.com/XgdEphkl6m
— Meg Conley (@MegDownSouth) July 24, 2017
Michael Phelps race against a computer generated shark will go down as one of TV's most hyped flops. #gullibleTVviewers
— PhantomAcct (@phantomacct) July 24, 2017
I love Shark Week, but I feel cheated with that Michael Phelps "race" against a shark. I wanted to see him try to outswim it for real. pic.twitter.com/xU5d4tSukW
— BillySS (@BillySS) July 24, 2017
