32-year old Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps raced a great white shark on Sunday to kick off Discovery‘s Shark Week.
The 23-time Olympic gold medalist and a simulated shark went head-to-head in a 100 meter race dubbed “Great Gold vs. Great White.”
Although fans had expected Phelps to race a real shark, he ended up racing a computer generated shark – and lost.
Scientists had collated swim speeds of sharks and with it generated the computer generated one, as they rarely swim in a straight line.
Phelps employed the use of a “monofin” and a 1-millimeter think wetsuit, to try to defeat the shark
The shark swam 36.1 seconds, while Phelps, in the open sea off the coast of South Africa, was close with 38.1.