April 1st gives folks from all walks of life license to take their best shots at fooling their friends and family. And as with all things, ultra-competitive swimmers always want to prove that they can do it best.
This April Fools brought us a healthy dose of humor from swimming figures from the club and high school levels all the way up to internationals and even the retired swimming legend Michael Phelps. Here’s a rundown of some of the best pranks we saw today:
Phelps Comeback
Of course, this was the low-hanging fruit. Phelps has been adamant that the Rio Olympics were his last competition in the pool, but many fans are refusing to believe it. Of course, those fans were proven right when Phelps said the same thing in 2012, but this time around, all signs point to Phelps sticking to his guns in retirement. Still, the most-decorated Olympian of all-time couldn’t resist giving fans a joking glimmer of hope today:
Some dreams/goals you just can't get rid of…been doing a lot of thinking n I've decided that I'm going 2 make another comeback! #tokyo2020
— Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps) April 1, 2017
The ruse didn’t last long, with Phelps announcing the tweet was a joke later in the day:
#aprilfools I'm not actually coming back😁 sorry for getting some of yalls hopes up🙊 https://t.co/GOp7osXCBF
— Michael Phelps (@MichaelPhelps) April 1, 2017
Whitley’s Hoop Dreams
6-foot-8-inch elite swim prospect Reece Whitley has plenty of fans excited about his future on the national and international stage. But Whitley just about gave some fans a heart attack today with a tweet about putting his extraordinary height to a different advantage:
https://twitter.com/_reecewhitley/status/848193377464197120
Stanford freshman Grant Shoults, who competed alongside Whitley at Junior Worlds in 2015, chimed in with his own response to Whitley’s announcement:
and I'm gunna pursue basket weaving in South America
— grantshoults (@grantshoults) April 1, 2017
Litchfield’s H2Go
April Fools pranks seem to work especially well when they’re cloaked in the shroud of pseudoscience, and Yorkshire Water got into the mix, creating a YouTube video starring British swimmer Max Litchfield to promote a specially-designed formula called H2Go – water scientifically altered to be faster for swimming:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEvxmSaTrbI
Club Pranks
Of course, today is also a great day for swimmers to pull pranks on their coaches – and vice versa! Here’s just a couple of the tweets we saw today about April Fools tomfoolery:
After considering many new training philosophies, #FRSTnation will be playing Water Polo & Marco Polo for the entire Long Course Season.
— FRST Swimming (@FRSTswimming) April 1, 2017
For April fools we pranked our coach by making it look like the health department shut us down😂 He bought it. @swimswamnews @Kdawgcoach1 pic.twitter.com/67Wg62mA1L
— Cody Bybee (@iCODYBYBEE) April 1, 2017
