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Swim for your life?! Michael Phelps will race a great white during Shark Week

Does the 'Phelps face' work on sharks? The Olympian will soon find out.
/ Source: TODAY

Where does a competitive athlete go after outperforming the entire human race? Apparently, he moves on to the animal kingdom.

Olympic swimmer Michael Phelps is coming out of retirement to race his most sinister rival yet: a great white shark!

In any other human, we might call this a delusion of grandeur. After all, sharks are natural predators, literally designed for speedy swimming. Oh, and then there are those teeth!

But then again, Phelps has the 'Phelps Face,' which might be the only intimidation factor he needs to give him the edge.

"Phelps vs. Shark: Great gold vs. Great White," produced by NBC News' Peacock Productions, will go down on July 23 as part of Shark Week, the Discovery Channel's beloved annual marathon of shark-related programming. Logistics of the race have yet to be revealed — as Dylan pointed out on Saturday morning's TODAY, we hope there's more than a lane marker separating these two!

In the meantime, it looks like Phelps is already sussing out the competition.

"I was able to do something that I had always wanted to do. Be in a cage and dive with great White sharks !!" Phelps captioned an Instagram photo earlier this week.

Translation: He was flashing 'Phelps face' and whispering "That's right. Twenty-eight Olympic medals."

We're on to you, Phelps, and we support it.