Thought Patterns
by Emanuel
August 13, 2008 at 14:15
filed under photography, rant, skate+snow+surf
This photo was taken during the 200m Free finals won by Michael Phelps with a margin of over 2 seconds. I won’t repeat all that’s being said about this swimmer, rather I wanted to share the photograph for those who might not have seen it as I found it very powerful. It’s an Olympic final and he’s already looking at his time while the silver medal finisher is more than one full body length away.
It reminded me of another Olympic final I had the chance to attend in person: the 2006 Torino Half Pipe. In a similar display of dominance, and with no disrespect to the other finalists, Shaun White, pictured below in one of my shots from the Torino Olympics, rendered the result of the finals somewhat a formality as he did not even need to do his most difficult run to win Gold. The practice sessions were where he laid it all out, needing ‘only’ his safe run to dominated.
Back in the pool, the dominance of Phelps is being ignored by the Chinese in the same way badminton might be ignored in the U.S. press – badminton was the first event to sellout at the Beijing Olympics. Perhaps his dominance is too obvious for the host nation and their nationalistic drive towards Olympic supremacy or perhaps the quest for records in the now technology dominated sport of swimming is simply a bit trivial albeit he is now the athlete with the most Gold medals in history.
We’ve seen White win X-Games medals in skateboarding so perhaps we need to see Phelps compete in the 110m hurdles to really have a story?
Comments are closed.
Guy
YO! j’y connais rien en natation mais je serais tenté de chuchotté drogue! Mais bon.
Ta photo de Shawn par exemple. Holly Crisse!! C’est malade! En plus l’effet de soufflet avec seulement une ligne tranversale au focus c’est vraiment sick. Ca donne tellement de perpective au sujet. SICK MANU!!
G
Emanuel
Guy – Merci pour ton commentaire sur ma photo, et d’avoir remarqué mon tilt-shift focus…