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by Dave Herd

All the hype is on Michael Phelps, and it's well placed. Two more gold medals last night (8/12) puts his 2008 Beijing total at a presently perfect 5 golds, all world records nonetheless, and his record setting Olympic gold total at 11 and counting (plus two bronzes to boot). This man is arguably the most impressive living competitive athlete right now, and he has the mental clarity and focus of Tiger Woods. It's true, I heard it on ESPN Radio. Not to mention that Phelps can put down three fried egg, tomato and onion sandwiches for breakfast and then wash it down with a stack of chocolate chip pancakes. Man, that's some carbs!! It's like the fat catcher in the Bad News Bears once said, "Chocolate has energy, I need energy!!" Really, if I ate that much in a day I'd be as fat as Mike Golic before Nutrisystem. But I digress . . .

Michael Phelps stands to earn $1 million from Speedo for his Olympic feats if he can best Mark Spitz's 7 gold medals in a single Games. He's close now with some tough events behind him, including the intense 4 x 100 M Freestyle relay over the French and last night's 5 second record smash in the 800 (4 x 200) M Freestyle relay. The betting man's got his money on Michael, and I bet that cool million is looking good to a University of Michigan aquaman (just enrolled, not an NCAA swimmer due to money earned) who would not otherwise see such cash in a "once every four year" sport. Actually, he was offered the same by Speedo at Athens in 2004, but came up just short as an eager young pup, winning more than seven total medals but not seven golds. Speedo was insured for $700K on the risk back then; now the glorified thong company is exposed for the whole package.

But let's not forget the French. Who ever can? They contributed to the original Wal-Mart style dumbing down of the world by erecting the Eiffel Tower in the 19th Century and have outrageous accents. They also make outrageous and unsupportable boasts as evidenced by the inexplicable smack talk before the 4 x 100 M Freestyle relay. Did they not remember that we have a comic book hero swimming for us? Actually, as everyone who isn't living under a rock right now knows, it was really USA swimmer Jason Lezak who hunted down French champion, world record holder and general loadmouth Alain Bernard in the final lap to bring gold glory to the country that saved France from two World Wars. OK, I'll admit the French basically won the Revolution for us and George Washinton took the credit. But who's counting? Only Michael Phelps and the rest of the United States, it seems. I'm going to keep watching.

Tags: olympics