Landon Phillips, a 19-year old U.S. swimming phenom expected to star at this summer’s Olympics, quit the sport yesterday due to embarrassment over the lack of a prominent swimsuit bulge, his coach reported.

Phillips was at his most comfortable when he was crouched before a race, hiding his crotch from spectators.

Robinson said she is making Phillip’s embarrassment over his small penis public in hopes it will prevent future swimmers from being ridiculed in the same way. “People thought it was okay to stare at him, to make comments that they thought he couldn’t hear. And because our society is so hung up on size, a great swimming talent has vowed to never enter the pool again. It’s a tragedy,” she said.

Phillips himself refused to comment on his reasons for quitting the sport, only to confirm that he has retired and that he “would prefer if Coach Robinson would stop saying what she’s been saying. Not that it’s true or anything, but it could make me feel more self-conscious and she’s letting millions of people think that I’m hung like a small boy. Again – not that it’s true, but that’s the impression that she’s giving and I wish she would stop.”

Robinson said she has long known that Phelps was very uncomfortable with how he looked in his swimsuit. “In the tight suits that swimmers wear, it was easy to notice that he was quite small down there,” she said. “And when he would get out of the cold pool it was even worse – he didn’t even look like a male from the waist down. And he knew everybody noticed.”

“Not that I would ever look or anything,” said U.S. teammate Darryl Lake, “but I have sort of noticed that there wasn’t much there. I felt bad for the guy, but it did make me look a whole lot better standing next to him, you know? He’ll be missed.”

An early indication that Phelps’s inadequacies would affect his swimming career came two years ago when he quit the backstroke, his best event. “He hated the backstroke,” said Robinson. “It horrified him that his crotch was facing up just millimeters below the water for everyone to stare at. He told me he didn’t want to do it anymore because he wanted to focus in other events, but I suspected the real reason.”

Phelps was expected to challenge for five medals at the Athens Olympics this summer, but now the U.S. team is stuck without one of its top swimmers.

“We all tried to convince him to stay, but if he’s that self-conscious about it, the Olympics, with hundreds of millions of people watching, is no place for him to be,” said Lake. “We hope he gets through his issues. Maybe he can get an operation or respond to one of those spam e-mails about penis enlargement. We just want him to have a normal life.”