Phelps VS. Thorpe

I'm really wondering what its like to be Michael Phelps.

All this hype must be crazy for a 19 year old kid. I understand he's good, and don't argue that, but I feel the media sure is setting him up to fall! All we've heard for the past couple weeks is how he's going to get 8 Gold medals and break Spitz's record, then yesterday the headlines say how he has failed.

Today the headlines are making the 200m free to be the race of the century. What will the headlines read tonight when he loses? I haven't ever taken a marketing class, but sports marketing has really started to interest me lately. The hype about Travis Pastrana at the X-Games turned out to be a flop, he hurt himself the night before the Finals in the Motocross Freestyle, thus ending any chances at him pulling off the much anticipated double back flip. Even after Pastrana himself said he wouldn't try any 360s or the double backflip the announcers kept talking about how he may pull one of them off.

Ricky Williams left Miami, for who knows what real reason, but the marketing around that event has been crazy as well.

So what's left for the 19 year old from the U.S.? Hopefully many more olympic golds, and hopefully many to come in future olympics, but I hope when he fails he gets back up and keeps competing, and the media can learn to now dwell on his failures, but his successes.