There's a shark in the water, all right—and his name is Michael Phelps.
Discovery Channel's special, Phelps vs Shark: Great Gold vs Great White, kicked off Shark Week Sunday, and many viewers tuned in under the assumption that the decorated Olympian would actually swim alongside a shark. About 40 minutes into the special, Tristan Gutteridge, one the featured scientists, reiterated what would really happen. "Clearly, we can't put Michael in one lane and a white shark on the far lane," he explained. "We're going to have to do a simulation."
Fans were disappointed to see Phelps compete against a CGI shark, which was created using scientific date taken from actual animals. The simulated great white swam 100 meters in 36.1 seconds; the 23-time gold medalist, meanwhile, took 38.1 seconds to swim the same distance.
Phelps addressed the backlash in a Facebook Live Q&A Tuesday. "Everybody wants to pick on something or say something or complain about something, so I had fun racing a shark and seeing those animals up close and personal. If somebody actually wants to get in the water and race side-by-side with a great white, go ahead. You're not going to get the shark to swim in a straight line. And, uh, yeah, it would be interesting to see," Phelps said. "We'll leave it at that."
"You can believe whatever you want," Phelps said in response to accusations that he and the network intentionally misled people in order to boost ratings for the special. "Everything was either present on-air during multiple interviews that I did throughout Shark Week or the beginning of the show. Sorry you feel that way. For me, it was something I'd always wanted to do. I was honored to be able to do it. So, I'm sorry that you feel that way. I feel very different."
Discovery Channel is on his side. "All the promotion, interviews and the program itself made clear that the challenge wasn't a side-by-side race," the network previously said in a statement. "Some people just decide not to listen to some of the things that we do, and that's not my fault that you don't do that," Phelps, 32, argued. "It's pretty easy to open up your ears and listen to either what the TV is saying, what the announcers are saying, or what I'm saying in interviews."
Phelps, whose Q&A lasted a about hour, eventually grew tired of the backlash and negative comments he received as a result of the special. "It's truly incredible watching some of the questions that these haters have out there. I mean, it's shocking..." the athlete said. "There's always somebody out there who's going to take a jab or say something negative about you."