The Man With All the Medals Blows a Golden Opportunity

[tannybogus]

Before assessing the supremely unflattering Sports Illustrated cover that celebrates Olympian Michael Phelps's eight gold medals in Beijing, one thing must be made clear: Phelps is an extraordinary athlete. He is an amphibious marvel. The man set an unprecedented goal for himself and then made accomplishing it look easy. He will undoubtedly serve as inspiration for generations of swimmers to come. All hail, Michael Phelps.

But Sports Illustrated did him an injustice with its Aug. 25 cover. The photograph treats Phelps like a pinup, like beefcake, like a babe. And he is none of that. He epitomizes athleticism, but he is not swoon-inducing in the manner of Tom Brady, Rafael Nadal or Michael Jordan. He does not have the golden boy grin of Tiger Woods. Nor does he have the kind of boy-band appeal that would make people who don't know diddly about swimming go ga-ga over his very presence.

The cover echoes the famous poster of swimmer Mark Spitz, whose record of seven gold medals at the Munich Olympic Games in 1972 was surpassed by Phelps. Clearly, it was a visual reference too tempting to ignore.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/22/AR2008082200862.html?hpid=topnews

Should SI have used the same pose? Does it matter?

[mdmc]

1. he is no Bruce Jenner

[MrCoffee]

2. The Post needed 900 words to talk about a photo?

The textbook definition of a slow news day.

[Marr]

3. Meh, this sort of thing doesn't bother me. What I do find interesting is how similiar

Phelps' and Spitz's bodies are. They're almost twins in terms of proportion.

[SoCalDem]

6. Spitz was a cutie pie.. The ribbons on Phelps' medals

made it look like a pink tank top when I first saw it..

His speech impediment may hold him back a bit..

[a la izquierda]

4. I think that at this point, everyone knows him.

I don't think the photo is bad, mostly because he seems like the kind of guy who will not let that happen. Perhaps four years ago, when he was younger it would have been different. But he seems to have a good head on his shoulders and is cute in a down-home, kid next door kind of way.

I like it.

[OwnedByFerrets]

5. Slow news day or just horrible writing?

:rofl:

[zuzu98]

7. lol, My mom had the Spitz poster in our basement for years...

Even with the cheesy 70s porn-star mustache, he oozed sex appeal. The Phelps photo is really unflattering and invites exactly the comparison made in the WaPo article. SI should have figured out another way to highlight Phelps's achievement.