Shark Week: Michael Phelps just raced a great white shark. It went about as well as expected.

As predicted, even with special shark-like swimming gear, Michael Phelps was no match for a great white shark in Discovery’s much-hyped “man versus shark” race that kicked off the network’s annual Shark Week.

Nor was Phelps any match for the internet’s reaction to the shark race.

Phelps vs. Shark: Great Gold vs. Great White premiered Sunday night as the main event of Shark Week. And although everyone pretty much knew that Phelps didn’t stand a chance, millions of viewers tuned in to see how it turned out — and many of them live-tweeted the experience.

How to stage (and hype) a shark race

For all the fanfare surrounding Discovery’s shark stunt, the concept was pretty simple: The network selected a 100-meter stretch of ocean in the Bahamas, had both the great white shark and the 28-time Olympic medalist swim the course, and compared their timed results. Though it was clear from interviews Phelps gave before the race that he wouldn’t actually be in the water with a shark, Discovery didn’t exactly advertise that part.

The network did its best to massively hype the race, including billing it as “the battle for ocean supremacy” and implying that Phelps was going to undergo some state-of-the-art transformations in order to have a chance of at least competing with the shark. Translation? He put on a swimming fin.

The actual hour-long broadcast of Phelps vs. Shark included Phelps simulating 50-meter races against two other varieties of shark in order to “prepare” for the race. Surprisingly enough, he actually beat one of them, besting a reef shark with a time of 18.7 seconds.

He had nothing on the hammerhead he practiced against, however, which beat him handily with a time of 15.1 seconds.

Meanwhile, the simple fact that Phelps would officially be competing against a great white — rather than the fastest known shark on the planet, the Mako — inspired a few complaints:

When it came time for the main event, the production team behind Phelps vs. Shark filmed an actual great white shark swimming in the specific 100-meter stretch of ocean designated for the “race.” So how did they manage that? Enter this brave guy on a floating bike thing, dragging along a decoy of a swimming seal to lure the shark along the designated track.

For most of the broadcast leading up to Phelps’s big moment, viewers at home tweeted their reactions — a mix of eagerness, eye rolling, and derision. In other words, it was a typical evening on the internet.

As the clock ticked toward the final showdown, Phelps’s famous “game face” from the Rio Olympics made quite a repeat appearance on Twitter.

And inevitably, there came the ultimate disappointment as people began to realize that Phelps was not actually racing in the water next to a real shark:

Finally, with just minutes to spare as the hour rolled away, the actual race happened. Phelps raced a simulation of the great white shark’s 100-meter swim — and to no one’s surprise, the simulated shark won by two seconds, performing a mighty breach as it attacked the decoy seal.

Phelps did an impressive job of keeping pace, however, swimming the stretch of open ocean in just 38.1 seconds to the shark’s 36.1.

Though the anticlimactic, simulated nature of the actual “race” let lots of people down, the real point of Phelps vs. Shark, as is typically the case with most Shark Week programming, was to sneak in some education and awareness raising about sharks, along with some science. Most of the event featured Phelps learning eyebrow-raising facts about sharks.

Given that humans kill 100 million sharks each year, the educational potential of Shark Week can’t be overstated, even if its track record is nowhere near perfect. And that’s why Phelps said he agreed to race the shark to begin with.

As for the gripping live-action animal-on-person drama you may have been expecting? You’ll have to wait for Usain Bolt to challenge that cheetah to a rematch.

Watch: Why no aquarium has a great white shark

Will you support Vox’s explanatory journalism?

Most news outlets make their money through advertising or subscriptions. But when it comes to what we’re trying to do at Vox, there are a couple of big issues with relying on ads and subscriptions to keep the lights on:

First, advertising dollars go up and down with the economy. We often only know a few months out what our advertising revenue will be, which makes it hard to plan ahead.

Second, we’re not in the subscriptions business. Vox is here to help everyone understand the complex issues shaping the world — not just the people who can afford to pay for a subscription. We believe that’s an important part of building a more equal society. And we can’t do that if we have a paywall.

So even though advertising is still our biggest source of revenue, we also seek grants and reader support. (And no matter how our work is funded, we have strict guidelines on editorial independence.)

If you also believe that everyone deserves access to trusted high-quality information, will you make a gift to Vox today? Any amount helps.

One-Time Monthly Annual

$5/month

$10/month

$25/month

$50/month

Other

$

Yes, I'll give $5/month

Yes, I'll give $5/month

We accept credit card, Apple Pay, and Google Pay. You can also contribute via