The body automatically responds to danger by running away. This flight response is activated by the brain, which makes the heartbeat and breathing faster to give muscles that rush of blood to move fast.

For someone in the water sensing danger, the response is the same, though the escape is done differently; that is, swimming away fast.

When lifeguard and park manager Greg Wilfert was swimming around buoys with other rescuers off Scarborough Beach in Maine, United States, on 8 August, the rescue can attached to his feet was pulled six feet down, dragging him underwater, Fox News reported.

Wilfert initially thought that the rescue gear got caught on a boat before realizing that a great white shark was pulling the can and him down, Fox News reported.

Wilfert quickly removed the strap from the rescue device and swam back to shore to safety.

“I just swam as fast as I could to the surface, and then I just was hoping it wasn’t behind me. I could’ve beaten Michael Phelps,” the 71-year-old lifeguard told WHDH, according to Fox News.

Phelps is an American former competitive swimmer who won more Olympic medals — 28 — than any other athlete across four Olympic Games. While Wilfert couldn’t possibly beat the speed swimmer in a pool race, the world’s fastest runner, retired sprinter Usain Bolt of Jamaica, has just been beaten in his game by a bionic contender.

Bolt ran 100 meters in 9.58 seconds at the World Athletics Championships in Berlin, Germany, on 16 August 2009 and holds that record, at least for human athletes, until today.

However, the humanoid robot “Lightning,” developed by Chinese smartphone maker Honor, ran 100 meters in 9.32 seconds during a test sprint for the second World Humanoid Robot Games at the National Speed Skating Oval in Beijing, China, on 22 August, The Standard reported, citing CCTV and Reuters.

The robot’s advantage over a human runner is its advanced technology, which enables it to sustain high speed without getting tired.