How a Michael Phelps Captive Breeding Program can Further American-Chinese Relations

As of this week Michael Phelps has won nineteen Olympic medals, making him the most decorated Olympic athlete in history. Acknowledging his superhuman swimming abilities, I propose that we declare Michael Phelps’ gonads a strategic national resource and begin harvesting and freezing his sperm for possible future use.

The Phelps Sperm Bank would ensure that if something unthinkable should happen (like America routinely losing at aquatic events to landlocked Serbia) that we would have the capability to breed a batch of hydro-champions to take up the slack and restore our national honor. We could employ the rest of his tadpoles over at CERN to scout for Higgs-Boson particles at near-light speed.

If you disagree with any part of my logic, you hate America.

Phelps is certainly the man of the hour. But his accomplishments should not eclipse that of Ye Shiwen, the sixteen-year-old Chinese swimmer who won two gold medals this week, annihilating world and Olympic records in the process. Both are highly impressive athletes, and it is my belief that we can utilize them to help assuage Chinese/American rivalry.

I’m unclear on the exact statistics, but Ms. Shiwen apparently swam so fast that she broke the sound barrier while underwater or something. Given her spectacular acceleration near the end of the pool, followed by apparently circumnavigating the Laws of Physics, some people speculate that the Chinese might have pumped her full of steroids, or possibly even built her, like a replicant from Bladerunner.

This is unfair to Ye Shiwen, who has passed her drug test. She won, she’s amazing, and congratulations to her.

The Chinese have fairly pointed out that Western commentators are applying double standards to her victory. When Michael Phelps won his nineteenth medal (he owns ten pounds of precious medal now– the mass of an unusually plump newborn baby) everyone from the U.S. simply assumed he is the bastard offspring of Poseidon and has totally understandable good ‘ol fashion American aquatic prowess. But when a Chinese athlete obliterated all expectations, many assumed Mandarin performance-enhancing sneakiness.

We need not view this situation as evidence of American-Chinese rivalries. Rather, we should welcome it as an opportunity to create an amazing cooperative project which will foster cultural ties between two important global powers.

Simply put: we breed Michael Phelps and Ye Shiwen, and allow their spawn to compete on behalf of both countries simultaneously. A win for the Phelps-Shiwen athlete would be a joint victory for China and America: we could all rally around such a competitor. Imagine it: everyone waving flags of a dragon and Chuck Norris as the future Larry Phelps-Shiwen zips through the water towards the victorious finish line.

I don’t mind being pegged as a creepy eugenicist, but be it known I’m against forced mating. It’s simply improprietal. In a few years, when Ms. Shiwen is mature enough to contemplate child rearing, we can lure the two athletes into a cage for a few days, like pandas, just to see if they get along. Maybe play some Barry White and leave a six pack of Tsingtao Beer lying around.If there’s no chemistry, we needn’t force the issue. We’ll simply tap into the reserves at the Phelps Sperm Bank and employ in vetro fertilization to germinate one of Shiwen’s super ovum.

Then, according to my plan, we’ll transplant the fertilized zygote into a dolphin uterus. Of course the embryo won’t become a human-dolphin hybrid simply by gestating in a porpoise. That would be silly. What it would do is provide nine months of pre-natal familiarity with the sensation of swimming at high velocities.

I propose using an aquatic mammal as surrogate mother simply to ensure that the embryo is familiarized with high-speed swimming before he or she is even born. Some parents blast Mozart into their womb to try and rack up future baby IQ points. We would simply acclimate the baby to swimming at crazy speeds instead.The result? A superhuman swimmer, and a living handshake between two great powers. Possibly even the birth of Aquaman.

You’re welcome.