He is a young man who has spent most of his life over coming obstacles and finding freedom in the water. He has been to 3 Olympics and has already proven himself to be one of the greatest of all time. Smoking weed doesn't make him a bad person, nor did it affect his abilities. Depression did, not having the fire in his belly anymore did, losing the love of the water did. While he was going through that; his opponents were still hungry for that gold medal, and they practice throughout the four years. Michael wasn't hungry for it anymore, but after coming in fourth place, I'm thinking that will be the boast he needs to actually try harder. He might not win any medals due to his lack of training for a while, but he is a natural talent.
2) He has not trained faithfully of late, took a vacation as it were, then came back and still made 4th, and we are worrying about his abilities being negatively affected by his use of marijuana?.
3) There is this thing called age which WILL catch up with him eventually, 10 years and two Olympics takes it's toll. Few people make it to 3 games and/or see much lime-light after their mid 20's (27 is "late mid twenties" to quote Hedwig)
4) OH and of the total medals he holds, 22 to be exact, 18 of them are golds, 82% of his world record number of medals are golds...
5) Just because the government has hidden the fact that marijuana has been known as a medicine and industrially useful plant for millennia and tried to convince us that it is evil, harms everyone who comes in contact with it, etc. does not mean that is true. A very good case can be made for the opposite, especially in this case. The lungs one needs to swim like that are going to be getting some practice from clearing a bong.
6) Since he retired and stopped training daily, and probably did ...
2) He has not trained faithfully of late, took a vacation as it were, then came back and still made 4th, and we are worrying about his abilities being negatively affected by his use of marijuana?.
3) There is this thing called age which WILL catch up with him eventually, 10 years and two Olympics takes it's toll. Few people make it to 3 games and/or see much lime-light after their mid 20's (27 is "late mid twenties" to quote Hedwig)
4) OH and of the total medals he holds, 22 to be exact, 18 of them are golds, 82% of his world record number of medals are golds...
5) Just because the government has hidden the fact that marijuana has been known as a medicine and industrially useful plant for millennia and tried to convince us that it is evil, harms everyone who comes in contact with it, etc. does not mean that is true. A very good case can be made for the opposite, especially in this case. The lungs one needs to swim like that are going to be getting some practice from clearing a bong.
6) Since he retired and stopped training daily, and probably did not slow up on the calories, etc. (whether because of weed or not) the weight gain would have been near impossible to work off safely in the short time he did train.
7) to the naysayers: He was also smoking marijuana in 2008 when a strongly significant number of those medals were won, the difference is he WAS TRAINING in earnest...
8) After you have 18 gold medals, what more is there to challenge you, keep you going, etc. depression waiting to happen BIG TIME
Bottom Line - He is an excellent swimmer but someone else stepped up and kept moving forward.
He is willing to place himself in the position of "prime target" to the other competitors who
seek to best him and for that, he is brave, in my humble opinion. Let's forget his indiscretions and salute his achievements.
One second thought....................?
He is a young man who has spent most of his life over coming obstacles and finding freedom in the water. He has been to 3 Olympics and has already proven himself to be one of the greatest of all time. Smoking weed doesn't make him a bad person, nor did it affect his abilities. Depression did, not having the fire in his belly anymore did, losing the love of the water did. While he was going through that; his opponents were still hungry for that gold medal, and they practice throughout the four years. Michael wasn't hungry for it anymore, but after coming in fourth place, I'm thinking that will be the boast he needs to actually try harder. He might not win any medals due to his lack of training for a while, but he is a natural talent.
I accurately reported his failure to medal and asked a question.
Do you see victims under every rock?
Even the highly paid, very famous and fabulously fortunate apparently are victims?
LOL!
By the way, is marijuana a treatment or depression or could it make it worse?
Oh no! There I go again making poor little Phelps feel bad!
He will have only his millions in endorsements and celebrity sex parties to console him...poor baby!