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Remember how Michael Phelps raced a shark for Shark Week?

We all saw the promotions for ages, that Michael Phelps was going to race a great white shark in a special titled: “Phelps vs Shark: Great Gold vs Great White.”

Some people saw that and actually believed that they were going to drop Michael Phelps and a great white into the same body of water and somehow get them to race.

A shark in a chlorinated pool would die.

Michael Phelps wouldn’t necessarily be devoured by a shark if dropped next to one in the ocean, but even if he were up for taking that risk … how exactly would Discovery have gotten the shark to race? By asking nicely?

So when people tuned in to watch Michael Phelps be lowered to his sharky doom as if by some James Bond villain, they had all sorts of reactions to watching him race a cgi shark that matched the speed of an actual great white.

Michael Phelps lost, but only by a couple of seconds. Super impressive for any human, and it just goes to show you that Michael Phelps’ body is incredibly hydrodynamic in addition to just representing the human physical ideal.

Twitter responded to Shark Week’s ridiculous stunt, and their varying takes on the special are more entertaining than Shark Week itself has been in years.