The Discovery Channel and MICHAEL PHELPS played us all when they said he'd be racing a great white shark last night.
Technically, nobody really SAID Phelps would be swimming anywhere near a shar but the advertising did try to make people think that. So did Phelps when he talked to "Entertainment Weekly" earlier this month.
In reality, the whole thing was SIMULATED. They apparently timed some sharks: A great white, a hammerhead, and a reef shark. Then they SIMULATED the races, with Phelps going against computer-animated sharks.
Phelps actually DID race in the ocean though, so at least there was that. But that wasn't quite enough for many, many unsatisfied viewers.
As for the results, he beat the reef shark, but he got crushed by the hammerhead, and he lost to the great white by two seconds.
The Twitterverse wasn't having any of it, though.