He won, stupid whiners.

I dunno... I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it always looked to me like Phelps lost.

But really, if he managed to sneak by and pull ahead by .o1 of a second, honestly, stranger things have happened. To me, it would be less possible to win a gold medal in gymnastics with a broken ankle, but no one seems to be disputing that.

Phelps also never stopped fighting to win the race, whereas Cavic just glided in. He deserved to lose in my opinion (Cavic did). And also, Torres lost the Gold medal by .01 of a second in her race, so it's not unheard of.

That whole "did Phelps really won that 7th gold" phrasing doesn't help their credibility very much.

Where did Punthe and that cat go?

I won't claim, by any means, to have the answer here. I have to wonder though if we are not the victims or perpetrators of something. So much information, to much information,feeding our fears,some beast, something. This years games will be marked not by who won or lost but all these stories like this and although I am not a big fan of sports I still find it sad. I have been watching it in the papers about everyday sports though so it's not suprising to see it in the games. I am sure the story is bigger than this and has gone on longer. Maybe its just the end of an age for us as we pull down the last of what ever beliefs we have in anything.

"That's like when a card-carrying Republican chief legislator rules in Bush favor in a crucial 2000 U.S. presidential Florida vote re-count. That's like when the U.S. Supreme Court ultimately rules in Bush favor because its bench was ideologically bent to the right."

*L* Grammatical errors aside, that's pretty funny.

As a former competitive swimmer and coach I can completely assure you that a "glide" finish is far from a strong finish. When you get to the end of the lap you have to make that split second decision to take one last stroke and possibly be cut short or kick hard and glide in losing momentum quickly...which is the lesser of the two evils? ..You have about .01 to figure that out.

Watch the finish frames AFTER the nutjob's shots and you'll see Phelps had THE BEST TIMED LAST STROKE possible. He overtook the glide finish and also would have finished with more pressure (keep reading).

You can't watch when the fingertips just touch, it takes a little more pressure to set those things off otherwise splashing water would set them off. It's not a perfect system, but photo finishes are not used for swimming, so the person has to make enough impact on the pad to set it off. Cheaper models take considerable more pressure and tend to be the first part of the system that fails, but Omega is the best (has been for years) and I'm guessing those puppies are brand new for the games. The old models use to have to be depressed about 1/4" before they'd fire..but those were 30 friggin' years ago when they first got popular.....and I sadly must admit using them. :( ..but hell...I was usually way out in front so who cared!! :)

This was one of the few races I watched on TV. To me it wasn't clear who won at first to me the slow-mo was proof enough.

but I decided to pick apart this photo from the post anyway.



You can see Phelps' head is in front of the other guys head, but we all know thats not what counts. It looks like Phelps is behind but thats just because his arms are back. This shot is a good .5 seconds before the finish, plenty of time for Phelps to swing his arms infront of him to take the last .01 second lead.

Theres no doubt in my mind who won that race but Cavic put up one hell of a fight.

I guess my post didn't make it...I'll repeat it....

ALSO notice that Cavic's head is up, he's exhaling, his back is arched and he knees are bending. VERY poor streamlining which is ALL you have in a diving lunge...This is indicitive of the LAST part of the dive...on the way back UP ...and is the SLOWEST point.

Phelps' head is down, there are bubble at his feet indicating he JUST kicked. He is lunging INTO a dive...the FASTEST POINT.

He's got PLLLLLENTY of time to catch those arms up and finish at a faster speed.

Easy solution.

Isolate each lane, put an adult great white shark in each lane. The first one not eaten is the winner.

Do you mean that you put the sharks in with the olympians or the conspiracy theorists?

Good question. :)

A few interesting updates...

The Omega timing system is more precise than the swimming pool itself.

Sports Illustrated has a frame-by-frame look that pretty much proves that Phelps won.