Michael Phelps Will Win Tonight, and I’m 100% Serious

Humanity has been through a lot, but racing and beating a Great White Shark in a rice?! Is it even possible?

Let’s do a checklist of what humanity has accomplished so far:

Creating fire with nothing but flint, stones, and some wood. Check.

Developing methods of transportation other than using our feet. Check.

Sending a man out of the atmosphere and into space. Check.

But you know what we haven’t been able to accomplish yet? Beating one of the kings of the ocean in a swimming race.

And that ends tonight.

As most people with half a brain know, this week of July is Discovery Channel’s “Shark Week,” where the television network shows only shark related programs for the entire week. People eat this stuff up. We marvel at sharks: how big they are, how ferocious they are, how prehistoric they are. To kickoff this year’s Shark Week, the network announced that Olympic Gold Medalist Michael Phelps will be racing a great white shark.

Now you’re probably thinking, “Oh my god, a shark?! Those things live and breathe in the ocean. There’s no way that Michael Phelps has a shot.”

If you think that, you’re wrong. Michael Phelps will win this tight race tonight, and I’m going to prove it to you. After you read this, you can look really smart in front of all your friends when you say “I told you so” once Phelps takes the crown for best swimmer across all species.

1. Look at Michael Phelps Olympic record.

Across all sports, the only way to judge the true elite-ness to an athlete is by how many rings or medals they have. For instance, Tom Brady has 5 Super Bowl rings and is the best quarterback of all time. Meanwhile, Dan Marino never won a single one, meaning that he really is not that good. Michael Phelps has won 28 Olympic medals. 28. That’s more than any other human being ever, and certainly more than any animal ever. Do you know how many Olympic medals the great white shark as an entire species have? 0. 0 Olympic medals in anything. They couldn’t even qualify for the Olympics, that’s how bad they are athletically. Phelps has the clear upper hand in this match, as 28 > 0 medals.

2. Simple physics.

I took a high school AP Physics class, so let’s just say I know a thing or two about physics. I’m going to break down why Phelps has gravity on his side against the great white shark. For those who don’t know, gravity is a force that works at 9.8m/s/s x the mass of an object. Michael Phelps last weighed in at 194 pounds, or the equivalent to 87.99 kilograms. Now, take that and multiply it by 9.8m/s/s and you find that Michael Phelps is only affected by 862.302 Newtons of force from gravity going downwards. Compare that to the great white, who on average weighs at 2,000 pounds, or 907.187 kilograms. This means that the shark is affected by 8,890.43 Newtons of force. Holy cow! Michael Phelps will have 8,028.128 less Newtons pulling him down than the shark will, meaning that the great white will have to put a significant more amount of energy into moving up than Phelps will. 8,028.128 Newtons will make a huge difference in the top speeds that both competitors will be able to reach.

3. Phelps is better rested.

Sleep can be a huge deciding factor in whether or not a being can perform to their best. There is loads of evidence around us. Who does better on tests, students who get a good nights rest or students who stay up really late? Ding, ding, ding; the answer is the students who get a good nights rest. Now, for those who do not know much about sharks, they never really sleep. They’re always on the move, never getting a chance to sit down and get some nice shut eye. This translates to the great white feeling slow, groggy, and irritable for most of it’s life. Compare that to Michael Phelps, who went to bed at 9:00 p.m. the night before the big race. Because of his appropriate amount of sleep, Phelps’ body is much more ready to go. While the shark is dreading the race and thinking about how tired he is, Phelps is energized and ready to compete.

4. Phelps just wants it more.

You hear it a lot in the sporting world. Athletes, coaches, and your dad will all say the same thing when their team loses a close game: “The other team just wanted it more, we didn’t want it bad enough.” As you know, it happens a lot. Sometimes, teams just don’t really want to win. They’re okay with losing or another team winning. It happens. It’s natural. The great white shark does not want it more than Michael Phelps does. Michael Phelps is considered one of the greatest athletes to ever exist, and he has always had a burning passion to win and dominate his competition. The great white is to used to dominance in the water. Nobody ever really challenges the shark, so the entire species has become too cocky. Thinking that he will run away with an easy victory, the shark does not want this win as bad as Phelps does. This is everything to Phelps, his last big race, so he is going to end it on a bang.

History will be made tonight. There’s no way around it.

Go Michael Phelps. Go United States.

But most importantly.

Go humanity.

*Tonight’s race will be live on the Discovery Channel at 8 p.m.