Michael Phelps has won 16 (??!!) Olympic medals:
He took home 8 gold medals in the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics to add to his 6 gold medals from Athens (and don’t forget 2 bronze!). He was the big hero of the Beijing Olympics, with lots of talk about him being part fish. We all rooted for him along with his mother in the stands, who was almost just as fun to watch.
But like any superstar, the media was just waiting for him to stumble and of course he did (he’s human!), including being caught smoking pot.
Just recently, MMA fighter and Olympic medalist in Judo, Ronda Rousey talked publicly about how Michael Phelps seems to receive special attention, being set apart even from other Olympians. Yahoo Sports quotes the Judo champ:
Rousey said while at a party for all American Olympians, the athletes happily mingled together. NBA players hung with the rest of the group, but Phelps had his own area that was just for his group.
“These NBA players are a bigger deal than this guy, and they’re hanging out with us. We’re teammates. We’re not a bunch of groupies. Come hang out with us,” Rousey said.
She said it was a similar set-up when Team USA visited “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” which rubbed her the wrong way.
“I don’t like being somebody’s teammate and being treated like I’m a groupie. I didn’t even want to go out of my way to say hello to that guy. Get over yourself. All you do is swim. If someone slapped you every time you jumped in the pool, I might have a little respect, but I was a swimmer before I did this stuff, and you can’t tell me that swimming is OH MY GOD, because it’s not.”Don’t like ads? Become a supporter and enjoy The Good Men Project ad free
This feeling is reflected by a lot of people you hear talking about Phelps, though at least just as many are still rooting for him as our strongest example of a super-athlete who can bring home the most medals for the U.S.
Will today’s 4th place loss to Ryan Lochte change people’s perception of him as “untouchable”?
Why do you think superstars such as Phelps end up with haters?
Is it because people love to root for an underdog, and his wins are just too “easy”?
Are you a huge fan of Phelps? Or are you rooting for someone else?
Why? When someone is because touted as an “American hero” and they are cocky and arrogant…Take the story of him going to the bars at 20 and demanding “do you know who i am??” Maybe it’s shallow to dislike him because he’s big and clumsy out of the water, he dresses like a spaz, and below average in the looks department (calling him “fugly” is being generous), but disliking him because he is an arrogant douchebag is spot-on. He is being used as a ROLE MODEL for children- he does talks as said “rolemodel” and what does he do in… Read more »
I’m no huge fan of swimming (I just think it’s a bit boring, compared to ski racing or gymnastics), but I get why Phelps is bigger than Kobe Bryant at the Olympics. He does one very simple thing, and he does it in absurdly dominant fashion. No one else in his field comes close. Kobe? He’s got Lebron & Shack & others very close to his performance levels. But Phelps is off on his own. And he’s good looking. And affable in interviews. His celebrity is completely explainable. And yet, it seems in this Olympics, he’s undertrained–bored from his years… Read more »
I like Michael Phelps. 🙂 He had a great anti-bullying message. So what if he smoked pot (which is not something I’d do)? At least he wasn’t hurting anyone.
Really? Wat about his DUI charge? That could have killed someone.
Hmm… I’ll be honest, for the three (?) weeks of the Olympics I’m pretty grouchy against all Americans. It doesn’t help that I’m American by background (Canadian by birth).
sexy monkey Carolan, is this you?
Too handsome, too rich, too nice, too successful, too famous, too funny, and had enough integrity to break up with Carrie Prejean. In short, he inspires jealousy.
I don’t think it is about jealousy…………gymnast Shannon Miller had the same problem….I think it is the personality. Then neither of them could walk away as being the greatest – they had to come back and try for more and ended up not being good enough. Mary Lou Retton said it best……..she was at the top and she had nowhere to go but down, so she left the sport being remembered as a champion…..no one hates her.
Why do you think superstars such as Phelps end up with haters?
Because there are people that want to see rising stars fall. If you look at any rising star, especially athletes, you’ll see that over the course of their career that the higher they rise the more the hating increases. Look at LeBron James.