Mark Spitz Snubbed?

[StoopTroup]

Sounds like someone really messed this up to me.

I hope he wasn't snubbed intentionally.

What say you?

Huge mistake?

Anyway...here's the story and the link.

Yahoo Spitz Story (http://sports.yahoo.com/olympics/news?slug=afp-oly2008swimusaspitz&prov=afp&type=lgns)

Spitz, once the star, upset over Beijing snub
by Polly Hui

HONG KONG (AFP) - US swim legend Mark Spitz won't be on hand in Beijing if Michael Phelps breaks his record of seven gold medals at a single Olympics—because, he says, no one bothered to invite him.

Spitz said the International Olympic Committee, a US television network or FINA—the international body that governs world swimming—should have brought him to the Games this year, with Phelps making a go at his record.

"I never got invited. You don't go to the Olympics just to say, I am going to go. Especially because of who I am," Spitz told AFP in Hong Kong.

"I am going to sit there and watch Michael Phelps break my record anonymously? That's almost demeaning to me. It is not almost—it is."

Spitz became one of the most famous athletes in the world at the 1972 Munich Olympics, winning seven gold medals—with seven world records—in what many consider to be one of the greatest achievements in all of sport.

Phelps is aiming to better that mark in Beijing, hoping to bring home eight golds. And Spitz, now 58 and grey and without his trademark moustache, cannot understand why he wasn't asked along to see the show.

"They voted me one of the top five Olympians in all time. Some of them are dead. But they invited the other ones to go to the Olympics, but not me," he said. "Yes, I am a bit upset about it."

Now a stockbroker and motivational speaker, Spitz also thinks he could have won eight golds himself in Munich if only he had had the chance.

"I won seven events. If they had the 50m freestyle back then, which they do now, I probably would have won that too," he said.

Spitz, whose brief stint in show business in the 1970s never quite matched his success in the pool, said he attended the Athens Olympics four years ago—when Phelps also tried to break the record.

"They did not once put my face on television," he recalled. "But as soon as the swimming was over, and Michael Phelps didn't break my record, every time I went to beach volley, they put my face on the volleyballs."

Spitz said it would have been a great idea if he could be the one presenting the gold medals to Phelps, who has for years been candid about his ambition to eclipse the mark of seven golds.

And Spitz thinks Phelps will succeed—for one very good reason.

"He's almost identical to me. He's a world-record holder in all these events, so he is dominating the events just like I did," Spitz said. "He reminds me of myself."

[GrapevineSooner]

Probably a backstory we don't know about it.

[olevetonahill]

I say he shoulda went on his Own
the media would have been on him like stink on **** .

[r5TPsooner]

vcash, yummy.

[GrapevineSooner]

I mean, as much as I respect the man for what he accomplished, there's a tinge of bitterness with these comments.


"I won seven events. If they had the 50m freestyle back then, which they do now, I probably would have won that too," he said.

Spitz, whose brief stint in show business in the 1970s never quite matched his success in the pool, said he attended the Athens Olympics four years ago—when Phelps also tried to break the record.

"They did not once put my face on television," he recalled. "But as soon as the swimming was over, and Michael Phelps didn't break my record, every time I went to beach volley, they put my face on the volleyballs."

Spitz said it would have been a great idea if he could be the one presenting the gold medals to Phelps, who has for years been candid about his ambition to eclipse the mark of seven golds.

Could you imagine Jack Nicklaus pining for attention if and when Tiger gets to the cusp of breaking his Majors record?

[olevetonahill]

I mean, as much as I respect the man for what he accomplished, there's a tinge of bitterness with these comments.



Could you imagine Jack Nicklaus pining for attention if and when Tiger gets to the cusp of breaking his Majors record?

hes sounding Like sicem and setem .:eek:

[Chuck Bao]

Yeah, like what's he doing in Hong Kong? If he is indeed a stock broker and a motivational speaker, he can afford to fly up to Beijing.

[GrapevineSooner]

But then he wouldn't get any face time.

Unless his face was on the volleyballs? :confused:

[RacerX]

He's a regular Bob Beamon.

[badger]

Oh, Mark, let it go.

I have heard nothing but lame excuses ever since this whole Spitz/Phelps record gold thing started. Spitz wore a briefy Speedo! Spitz had a mustache! Phelps has more preliminary rounds! Phelps has more pressure!

zzzz. Records are made to be broken. Someday they will attach little flipper-like things to their feet, web-like things to their hands and fin on the back of their space age suits and swim even faster than Phelps is now. Different eras, both swimmers were good. Odds are if Spitz reached out to Phelps earlier than now (like in 2004, the first attempt at breaking the record), he would have gotten a personal invite.

[RacerX]

I said the same thing in 6 words.

[badger]

I said the same thing in 6 words.

Don't you mean five?

[StoopTroup]

I think it's a huge mistake but I also think that sometimes you just have to take the bull by it's horns and punk his a$$ like a Sooner would do a Longwhorn.

He should have gone on his own and wrote a book about it all and even do a Photo Op with his 7 medals and Michael Phelps 8. They could have both split the dough for that those pics then.

[RacerX]

Don't you mean five?

He's = He is

[badger]

He's = He is

1 = 2?

;)

[LiL10(s)ArEaJoKe]

1 = 2?

;)


Yep 1 does = 2

let a=b
then a^2 = ab
then a^2 + a^2 = a^2 + ab
then 2a^2 = a^2 + ab
then 2a^2 - 2ab = a^2 = ab - 2ab
then 2a^2 - 2ab = a^2 - ab
then rewrite as 2(a^2-ab) = 1(a^2 - ab)
cancel out the a^2 - ab and you are left with...................

2=1!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!