Reply #55: Just as I predicted

[Seabiscuit]

All the hype and hoopla surrounding Michael Phelps is nothing but media crud promoted by NBC to sell advertising (featuring Phelps). Wake up, NBC, he's not the guy to beat or even come close to Mark Spitz's record seven gold medals. Phelps is good, but not THAT good.
His premier event is the individual medley, where swimmers use all four strokes (and in that event he was superb, setting a new world record and capturing the gold). In individual events, there are better swimmers out there in each of the four strokes, including other American swimmers on his own team, who have received little to no attention from NBC.

See:

http://sports.espn.go.com/oly/summer04/swimming/news/story?id=1860438

Ian Thorpe from Australia took the gold and Hoogenband from the Netherlands took silver, leaving Phelps with another Bronz in the men's 200 meter freestyle swimming event today.

NBC's still the crappy media giant it was when some goofy looking, long haired, foul-mouthed comic disc jockey named Howard Stern humiliated them and their pet Imus years ago. Stern is long gone, and NBC still plays "Imus In The Morning" - good grief - that Imus creep looks and sounds like a werewolf on thorazine.