Michael Phelps- You're still the man.

The first thing I want to know is who took the picture? What kind of a person would do that? I mean there you are, at a party and you see Michael Phelps with his buddies. He has just won eight gold medals at the Olympic Games and is by all accounts a good guy. What is the next thing that goes through your head?

"I want to destroy his career. Please let him do something controversial. Please. Please." Did the person get down on their knees and pray for his demise. Was there a voodoo doll involved? Whatever happened, Phelps smoked some cannabis from a bong. Not the greatest crime ever committed by a college student, there are some who would say it would have been a bigger offence to have refused it or certainly a breach of etiquette.

The individual involved, the true criminal shall we say or the cell phone paparazzi to give him his proper title caught Phelps in the act and had to presence of mind to capture the incident on tape. They then took the recording and I guess, tried to sell it to a newspaper. What did the media man think when informed of this offer? Did he think that he was quite possibly talking to the most evil man since Hitler?

They didn't catch Phelps cheating. There is no suggestion in all of this that cannabis is a performance enhancing drug. If anything, I would have thought it would have the opposite effect. We were always told growing up to avoid alcohol and drugs in the lead up to a big championship game. Nobody ever specified if the drugs to be avoided were recreational or performance enhancing but I just assumed they were all included. Recreational would make you worse, performance enhancing is just cheating.

Michael Phelps was caught taking some down time in the off season by some oppertunistic fungus out to make a quick buck. Phelps at least made his bucks through hard work and making the most of his talents. Phelps is a hero the world over but he is also a normal 23 year old and shouldn't be treated so harshly if he steps out of line once in a while.

I can't blame Kellogs for pulling their sponsorship. I wouldn't expect anything less from such a company. They use whatever means necessary to make a profit and if they think there is more money to be made from dropping Phelps, they will do that. Their relationship with Phelps is purely buisness, whatever they might otherwise have said.

Phelps still has had to suffer incredible embarrassment and harassment, from this incident including the humiliation of being banned from swimming. I don't blame Phelps for the error of judgement, I blame the guy who exploited the oppertunity. He can't have a lot of friends.

Phelps will be alright. He will bounce back in the same way he did when he was caught drunk driving shortly after winning a pocket full of gold in Athens in 2004. Those two incidents almost 5 years apart linked by such extraordinary Olympic success suggest to me only that Phelps has struck a healthy life/work balance.

He should not have been banned from swimming and that person should not have exploited the champ with his guard down. Michael Phelps is still an inspiration and just because there's money to be made by the media and the high brow-bottom line companies in getting him down, he is still number one.