Phelps Wins (Acapulco) Gold!

This is allegedly a picture of Michael Phelps - the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time - sucking on a bong in South Carolina last fall... An outfit called "News Of The World" has posted this with a long article detailing Phelps' drug use on its website. Well, "detailing" is probably too strong of a word, considering it's filled with the typical "sources say" and "friends tell us". In any case, you can read the article here. I find this whole article to be pretty hilarious on several fronts...

First of all - How do we know this really IS Michael Phelps? We're getting a picture of a guy who is in profile - Slightly less than profile , in fact. You could photograph half of the dark-haired college students in America and come up with a shot that looks just like this.

Second - So what if it is Michael Phelps and so what if he is smoking pot? I highly doubt you're ever going to get an admission of it from him or his agents. The guy is worth a hundred million dollars in endorsements, and he's never going to get caught with a positive dope test. He's been handled way too well for that to ever happen. The whole world knew Phelps was going to take a break from training after Beijing, and in fact, he just went back to the pool a couple of weeks ago to start his preparations for 2012. If he got high a few times during his break - and again - it's not going to be proved that he did - you don't think the world will forgive him?

Third - The article claims that Phelps' reps offered to make Phelps a columnist for "News Of The World" for three years if they would keep the story from going to print... Yeah - I can see it now... Phelps' brands ... Visa... McDonald's... Kelloggs... News Of The World.

If you are tempted to get on your moral high horse about Michael Phelps, be my guest. But we live in a world now where people tend to believe what they see on the internet. Who needs verification of anything? I receive urban legends in my email constantly - sent to me by well-meaning friends and relatives who don't even take two minutes to investigate and determine that the story they are sending me is total b.s.

I would bet in this star-crazy world that if it was proved Michael Phelps is a stroker AND a toker, it would only stoke marijuana sales. Do we really want to push that? Until he Nicole Simpsons someone, Phelps is pretty much a Teflon guy, don't you think?

I highly doubt if Phelps "only" wins 4 or 5 golds in London that people are going to look back on this day and say it was the Pot that made Phelps go to pot.