An Olympic First

I've learned a lot about Michael Phelps in the last few weeks. More than I'd care too, actually. Let me summarize it all: Michael Phelps swims real good. Everyone is all on his johnson for being a Gold medal hopeful in 8 events. What, like one medal isn't good enough? His trip to Beijing seems more about greed than the true spirit of Olympic competition. You know, the dreaming of winning gold in a SINGLE event?

Enter Natalie du Toit. Name sound familiar? It should. She's a swimmer who made the South African national team. She's got her sights set a little lower than Michael Phelps. In fact, despite being a five-time gold medalist, she was stoked when she even made the Olympics. Why you ask? She won her gold medals at the Paralympics (not to be confused with the Special Olympics, which my roommate and best-friend Evan is a perennial bronze medal hopeful).

That's right, THIS WOMAN MADE IT TO THE OLYMPICS WITH ONLY ONE LEG. She doesn't use a prosthetic to swim, either. That would be unfair to whole-bodied athletes as the shiesty uni-ped would probably attach a flipper to her thigh. So I read about this woman, and I'm thinking, "How on earth does she have a chance?" The article I read had no pictures, so I Google imaged her.

WOWWIE! Who shaved a one-legged gorilla and taught it to swim?

Here is Ms. du Toit next to a regular, non-ogre Olympic swimmer. I bet the first difference you noticed was NOT Natalie's missing leg.

This last pic is of Shrek/Natalie about to crush/eat some rocks/concrete with her bear/bare paws/hands.

But, at the end of the day, is swimming really even a sport? No, no it's not.