# I pit Michael Phelps, Omega, NBC and the Olympics. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 16, 2008, 10:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-michael-phelps-omega-nbc-and-the-olympics/460267 "2008-08-16T22:02:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-michael-phelps-omega-nbc-and-the-olympics/460267/61 "2008-08-21T14:46:22Z")
[QUOTE=Spartydog] “Stick to their guns”. I’m not sure what you mean. [/quote] You’re sticking to this theory even though none of the people who were actually affected by the decision agree with you. > [@](#): > > Drop the protests? Easy. They all get in a room. A commitment of a few million dollars is made to be split among whomever. Protests dropped. The photos are buried. Everyone goes home happy and the storybook is written. The money rolls in. So the support for your proposed conspiracy is… a larger conspiracy. Color me unsurprised - and unconvinced. > [@](#): > > Are we looking at the same photos? Phelps is on the left. Bottom pictures - You can’t see Phelp’s hand touching the wall even if it is. Cavic’s hand looks to be touching the wall even if it isn’t. I addressed this already. > [@](#): > > Hey, I didn’t resurrect this story. The New York Times saw fit to print it on the front page of the sports section this morning. I’m just the messenger. Yeah, well, I tried arguing with my computer screen, but people were giving me funny looks. Like I said: I don’t think Cavic is touching the wall, and the photos make it clear that Phelps’ arms are moving toward the wall much faster. ---
**Author:** ![OtakuLoki](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/ac8455/32.png) [@OtakuLoki](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/OtakuLoki)\ **Post date:** [August 21, 2008, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-michael-phelps-omega-nbc-and-the-olympics/460267/62 "2008-08-21T14:48:43Z")
[QUOTE=Spartydog] No, I ran with the story from Gawker even though I was skeptical but I thought I’d go with it. I didn’t invent it. The general consensus among you guys was that I was crazy, everything is on the up and up, blah, blah, blah. I went on to point out that some pretty questionable things have gone on in sports so why not question this one (and I was having some fun with it). [/QUOTE] If that’s what you think my point has been all along, I haven’t done very well expressing myself. I definitely do not believe that everything going on with the Olympics has been on the up and up. I simply have heard nothing that presents a credible case for how this event could have been fixed to produce a false result The moment a proposed conspiracy requires superhuman reaction times, or literally inhuman judgment, or simply rapid and decisive communications between more than, say, five people, without any of them leaking their part, the theory fails the real-world likelihood test: i.e. would this be possible in the real world. Nothing you’ve linked to in any of the articles addresses the very valid points that **Finagle** made upthread. And when your initial redirect involved claiming that someone could convincing “throw” a race at a hundredth of a second intervals you lost even your initial credibility. The simple fact that some entity might have a motive for a given result is not sufficient to justify a charge of shenanigans. As for your recital of prior frauds in sports, no one I think has said that sports, nor even the Olympics, are immune from cheating. It’s simply that this particular scenario does not lend itself to easy, or believable fixing. As for the NY Times - simply because something is fit to print, doesn’t make it true, nor does it make it accurate, nor complete. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-pit-michael-phelps-omega-nbc-and-the-olympics/460267.md?page=3)