I had heard a few things about Mark Spitz‘s negative attitude towards Michael Phelps and his quest for 8 golds. What I heard however, was nothing compared to the story commenter Gene passes along. 36 years after his day in the spotlight at Munich, Mark Spitz, one of the greatest Olympians ever, is coming off as quite the bitter type. He’s upset he wasn’t invited to the Olypmics to watch Phelps try and break his record of 7 gold medals and 7 world records in one Olympics. The bitter man also added this:
“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.”
…
“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.
…
“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.”
Hmm, I really can’t imagine why he wouldn’t have been invited. Maybe like Newman says, it got lost in the mail? Dude, I know it’s tough to let go … but just let go.
