Chansky’s Notebook: Lucky To Have Seen Them

Michael Phelps and Usain Bolt are more alike than different.

 

One is a white swimmer from Baltimore who has won more personal gold medals than any Olympian in history. The other is Jamaican sprinter who is on track to go 9 for 9 in his gold medal races, trying to do what he’s already done in London and Beijing.

Phelps carries the nickname of Baltimore Bullet while Lightening Bolt has stuck for most of Bolt’s record-breaking career.

Both became stars in their sports as barely teenagers, although Bolt often blew off training to play practical jokes on his coaches and friends. Phelps has been in and out of embarrassing situations in his four Olympiads, including admitting he didn’t train very hard for the 2012 Games in London, which prompted him to train harder than ever had for what he said will be his last Olympics.

Bolt will turn 30 Sunday. He is 6-foot-5 and 207 pounds. Phelps, who is 6-4 and 195 pounds, was still setting Olympic and world records at 31. Both world class athletes went to college, but Bolt to a Technology school in Jamaica and Phelps to Michigan, where he did not swim for the Wolverines because he had already signed an endorsement contract with Speedo.

Phelps’ net worth in 2015 was estimated at $55 million, although that will surely rise after winning five more gold medals in Rio for a total of 23 – more than about two dozen COUNTRIES have ever earned in their Olympic history. Besides Speedo, Phelps has had endorsement deals with Visa, Subway, Wheaties, Louis Vuitton, Under Armour and Omega.

Bolt is worth 60 million, and that will go up if he does win the 200 meters and the 4 X 100 relay, which would make him the first three-time champion in three track events. His biggest advertising checks come from Puma, Virgin Media, Visa and Nissan, meaning the fastest man ever timed will not only be the 100-meter man but also the 100-million man before his celebrity career is over.

One if by land and two if by sea, both are athletic phenomenon we have been lucky to watch for 12 years.