Swimmer Learns He'll Be In Olympics On Twitter

In a story that certainly speaks to the #OnlyOnTwitter phenomenon, swimmer Ricky Berens found out he was headed for the Olympics earlier today from a tweet.

Michael Phelps was slated to compete in eight Olympics events this summer in London, but decided to scale back and only compete in seven events instead. Yes, only. He won eight gold medals in Bejing in 2008 and made the wise decision to NOT have the pressure to repeat that performance.

So his coach, sent out a tweet announcing Phelps’ decision:

And the person next in line to compete in this event, Ricky Berens, happened to see the tweet!

As Yahoo Sports tell us, the 2008 relay gold medalist finished third in last week’s 200 free, enough to qualify him for a relay in London, but not enough to get into the individual field. By virtue of Phelps sitting out the event, Berens moved up a spot and earned his spot to London.

Only on Twitter.

Have you had any #onlyonTwitter moments? Please share them in the comments.

(Surprised person image from Shutterstock)