Saturday, March 14, 2009

Phelps

Shame on all of you who criticize Michael Phelps. I know that the scandal with the picture of Phelps and his infamous bong happened months ago, but there are always updates about it (seen here).

Whenever I saw anything on the news about the incident it had a negative connotation and it really made me sick. I'm sure most teenagers will side with me on this one:

So Michael Phelps is a record-breaking olympian which includes winning 16 medals between the 2004 and 2008 Olympic Games. He's a role model for people of all ages and was one of the biggest stories of the 2008 Summer Games. But people keep forgetting the one thing that is most important, and probably is the reason for the incident taking place....HE'S ONLY 23 YEARS OLD. He has been training to swim for almost his entire life. While other kids went out to the movies, Phelps was in the pool doing laps and drills. He won his first gold medal at only 19 years old and immediately became a phenom. Essentially, Phelps was forced to grow into an adult and a role model without getting to be a teenage "rebel" (and those are the most fun years...I would know, I'm going through them now).

When you think about it, maybe Phelps is just making up for lost time. Don't chastise him for making mistakes, everyone makes mistakes. So he was smoking marijuana? He's not perfect, and neither is anyone who criticizes him. Let the man be. Let him have fun. While I'm sure that swimming all day and night is one hell of a time, people need time off.

Let Phelps have fun while he's still young. To all of you older than Phelps, you remember what it was like being young, give the guy a break, he certainly deserves it.

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