MICHAEL PHELPS
AGE: 32. NICKNAME: The Flying Fish.
FAMOUS FOR: A record 23 Olympic gold medals (and most decorated Olympian of all time with 28 medals in total).
TOP SPEED: Six miles per hour (12mph wearing a monofin, a single flipper into which he straps his feet). HEIGHT: 6 ft 4 in.
WEIGHT: 13 st 12 lb.
POWER: Can squat lift up to 385 lb. DIET: Consumed up to 12,000 calories a day at the 2008 Beijing Olympics – a typical man needs 2,500. His breakfast was three fried egg sandwiches, toast, an omelette, porridge, three pancakes, and two cups of coffee; lunch 1lb of pasta, two ham and cheese sandwiches, and energy drinks; dinner 1lb of pasta, a pizza and more energy drinks. He has since cut down to a mere 8,000 to 10,000 calories a day.
SLEEP: Preparing for competitions, he slept eight hours a night and two to three hours each afternoon. He trained for five to six hours a day.
WARM UP: The so-called ‘condor flap’. To loosen up for races, he bends over and flaps his arms up and down like a bird.
ANATOMICAL ADVANTAGES: Arms measure 6ft 7in from fingertip to fingertip, making his ‘wing-span’ 3 in longer than his height – the two are usually the same. He can rotate his size-14 feet downwards by 15 degrees more than average, until they are streamlined with his shins, helping him kick his feet as if they were flippers. He also uses his double-jointed ankles, knees and arms to generate more thrust than other (human) swimmers.
WELL, FANCY THAT! The low-drag swimsuit he wore in the Olympics imitated the rough texture of shark skin. As sharks slip through the water, they expend 10 per cent less energy than fishes with smooth skin. Shark skin is coated with razorsharp, tooth-like scales called denticles that reduce surface drag by disrupting water flow, like the drag-reducing dimples on a golf ball.
ODDS: 6/4 outsider (Ladbrokes)
AGE: Can live into their 70s, making them among the longest-living fishes, according to latest research. Males sexually mature around 26 and females around 33. NICKNAME: White Death.
FAMOUS FOR: Inspiring Peter Benchley’s novel Jaws, which spawned Steven Spielberg’s hit 1975 film, its ‘der-duh, der-duh, der-duh…’ soundtrack — and great whites’ infamy as man-eaters.
TOP SPEED: Twenty-five miles per hour. Scientists believe they could reach 35mph (though the shortfin mako is believed to be the fastest shark, at up to 40mph).
LENGTH: 15-20ft.
WEIGHT: Around one ton on average — but can be up to 2.4 tons. Females grow larger than males.
HIS KILLER RIVAL
POWER: Eighty-five per cent of body weight is muscle, compared with about 35 to 45 per cent for humans. Their bite force can reach about 1.8 tons — though Michael Phelps would have been hoping he’d never get to discover what that feels like.
DIET: They need to eat 66lb of mammal blubber every 15 days to survive — the equivalent of a seal pup every three days. Prey also includes small-toothed whales such as belugas, sea turtles, fish and dead animals they’ve found floating in the water.
SLEEP: Shark sleep patterns have long puzzled scientists because they need to keep water moving over their gills in order to breathe. Many species can do this while lying on the seabed and moving their gills to create a pumping effect.
But great whites possess no muscles in their gills so they have to keep moving. To sleep, they slow down and cruise in a trance-like state... with their eyes open. WARM UP: No need to — as their body temperature can be 50f (10c) higher than the surrounding water.
This is because heat generated as they swim is conserved by a special vascular network surrounding the muscles.
This network helps to maintain heat in the body core, rather than allowing it to dissipate into the cooler water.
ANATOMICAL ADVANTAGES: A great white is torpedo-shaped with long bundles of muscle fibres from the top of its head to the tip of its tail. When these are contracted, a series of undulations are produced along the body, allowing the shark to accelerate through the water using its tail.
And should an opponent cut up rough, its mouth is lined with up to 300 serrated, triangular teeth arranged in several rows.
WELL, FANCY THAT! Of the 100-plus annual shark attacks worldwide, around one-third are attributed to great whites. Most are not fatal — and recent research suggests the sharks are just ‘sample biting’ out of curiosity. So that’s all right then. ODDS: 1/2 favourite (Ladbrokes)