Do Olympic Swimmers Pee In The Pool? Michael Phelps: “Yup, Everybody”

We’ve long suspected it. Heck, maybe we’ve known it all along. Everybody pees in the pool, including U.S. Olympic swim team members. Ryan Lochte fessed up to it recently, and apparently, Michael Phelps agrees.

When Lochte confessed to using the pool as a toilet, he stirred a bit of shock and controversy, but not among his colleagues. Phelps seemed to shrug the whole thing off in an interview with the Wall Street Journal, saying that peeing in the pool really isn’t a very big deal. “I think everybody pees in the pool,” Phelps said. “It’s kind of a normal thing to do for swimmers. When we’re in the water for two hours, we don’t really get out to pee,” adding, “Chlorine kills it so it’s not bad.”

I guess when you’re the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time, you can get away with anything.

Carly Geehr, a former member of the U.S. swim team, was nonchalant about peeing in the pool as well. In a column for Slate, she argued that competition swimmers have been doing it for years, and that every Olympic swimmer jumps into a pool with the full realization that they’re swimming in pee.

“Nearly 100 percent of elite competitive swimmers pee in the pool. Regularly. Some deny it, some proudly embrace it, but everyone does,” she said, hinting that when swimmers splash themselves with water before climbing on the racing block, it’s a veiled effort to urinate before a race. Despite this, she says that Olympic swimmers do not pee during races, but if they did, there wouldn’t be any way of knowing.

“I’m sure I’ve swum directly behind people who were just letting it all out,” she said.

Here’s the interview in which Michael Phelps admits to peeing in the pool. Disgusting or completely understandable?

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