this is "nightline." >> tonight, captured. >> it's your boy. >> two college football players lured into a strange house. >> the next thing i know, five to ten masked men just come out with bats and pipes and guns. >> held captive and tortured for 40 hours until finally a s.w.a.t. team blasting in. the bizarre truth about why these students were targeted. plus phelps versus shark. olympic champion michael phelps has bested all of mankind. >> michael phelps has done it again! >> now he's take on another species. >> racing a shark was something i always wanted to do. >> with a little boost from a bionic fin.

can he really beat the teeth? but first the "nightline" 5. nu

good evening. thank you for joining us. we begin tonight with an unimaginable horror. two college students held captive and tortured by masked men in what they assumed was a random attack.

when they finally made it out alive they learned they had been targeted. the reason behind it led to more disturbing revelations. espn's tisha thompson brings us this report. >> calling, homey. >> reporter: it feels like a scene from a horror movie. >> torture. >> don't do it. >> they were gloating. >> please. >> reporter: but this nightmare is real life. two football players from the university of rochester held captive and tortured. >> they started shooting everywhere. >> they said we don't want money, we want blood. >> how do i survive? >> reporter: they were targeted in a violent plot for revenge for a drug robbery they had nothing to do with, leaving two young men fighting for their lives. niko kollias gone his college career full of hope. in 2012 he enrolled at the university of rochester to follow his two passions. football. >> i love football. it's my favorite sport. >> reporter: and piano. ♪

playing for the school's division 3 football program and also studying at rochester's renowned eastman school of music. >> kind of just fell in love with it and turned out to be one of the greatest experiences and decisions that i've made to attend. >> reporter: but everything changed for the 6'1", 215-pound defensive end the winter of his senior year. it was friday december 4th, 2015. niko's close friend and teammate, who asked not to be named, told him they had been invited to a party by a girl he met on facebook, 19-year-old samantha hughes and her 20-year-old best friend leah gigliotti. >> he was like let's go do it, let's go be with these girls. and it didn't seem like that bad of an idea. >> had you ever met either of these girls before? >> no. >> reporter: but when they pulled up to this house at 22 harvest street, there wasn't a party. >> we followed the girls in the

side door. the first thing i smelled was just like urine and feces. and it was totally disgusting. and i sat down on this leather couch, and the next thing i know is five to ten masked men in all black just come out with bats and pipes and guns. they're just screaming and demanding things. and the lights go black. i got up and ran as quickly as i could, made it halfway across the room. i got shot point blank in my left leg, and i got shot in my right leg, in my right calf. my femur was broken in half. they dragged us into the bathroom, leaned us up against the walls and duct taped our hands and legs together. >> am i in this video? are you recording, homey?

>> i'm recording. >> reporter: the masked men then started recording this cell phone video of their attack. >> you run with the [ bleep ] people. the wrong [ bleep ] ones. >> please. i'll do anything. >> i was pleading for my life, and i was saying that i would do absolutely anything in my power to give you anything that you want. >> reporter: over the next three hours the men in the video would use this rifle, metal pipes, rebar, and this iron to physically and sexually assault niko and his teammate. >> what is going through your head? >> i had no idea who these people were. i had no idea why this was happening to me and like where we were. and i didn't know what was going on. i was -- i was so confused. >> here you go. start running. >> [ bleep ]. [ bleep ]. >> yo. >> i went black for like two seconds, came back and just like

the amount of blood that was like dripping down my face and like covering my body, it was just so overwhelming. i was pushing myself through to not give up and not close my eyes because i didn't want to die. >> reporter: as the sun began to rise the morning of saturday december 5th, 2015, niko and his teammate had been held captive for nearly 12 hours. back on campus their roommates have reported them missing, but niko's terror was far from over. his captors started demanding money. >> they were holding me at gunpoint the entire time. >> i really need the money now so there's nowhere that i could get the 1,500 just transferred over to the debit card? >> it's impossible to move money on the weekend. >> okay. that's fine. i guess i'll just call back monday. >> reporter: forced to wait, they turned to niko's atm cards. in this surveillance video you can see a man in the back seat

wearing the same white skull mask as the man in the cell phone video. this is 26-year-old lydell strickland. prosecutors say strickland tortured niko for his pin numbers and withdrew more than $5,000 at different machines throughout the weekend. evidence photos show he used the money to go on a shopping spree. a $799 leather jacket. shoes. pants. and a pair of $28 jeans from marshall's. police, who were scouring rochester for niko and his teammate, spotted the strange activity popping up in niko's bank accounts. >> we were concerned that monday that money would be moved, the suspects would get it and the absolute intent was once they got the money from that account that these kids would have been killed. >> reporter: police zeroed in on leah gigliotti and samantha sam hughes was hughes was the last person to communicate with nick

oh's teammate. the police brought the two in for questioning and it went on for 14 hours. >> there were hours and hours of lies until finally towards the end we started getting some details which led us to 22 harvest street. i'd made the decision i was going to have the s.w.a.t. team on standby. >> reporter: sunday december 6th, 2015. 40 hours after they were captured the s.w.a.t. team moved in on 22 harvest street. >> it was just shocking. i mean, the whole house like shook. i thought they were burning down the house. but in reality it was actually the s.w.a.t. team that was detonating entry into the house to save us. >> oh, my god. >> reporter: the blast was captured by a neighbor's cell phone. shattering the front door. the s.w.a.t. team moved through the house, rounding up suspects, freeing niko and his teammate. the two of them were rushed to the hospital, where niko

underwent emergency surgery. >> i had three or four blood transfusions. they put a titanium rod through my femur, attaching it with screws in my knee and hip. they surgically removed glass from my eardrum and scalp and skull. >> reporter: niko spent 25 days in the hospital. after it was all over the police pieced together the motive for the brutal assault. niko's teammate, who survived the ordeal with him, was mistaken for this player, rochester star linebacker isaiah smith. >> what is clear, he was involved in drug dealing. what is clear is that he set up a violent drug robbery on campus. >> reporter: prosecutors say isaiah wanted to steal four pounds of marijuana from drug dealers he knew. so he planned a robbery inside the apartment where niko's friend and teammate lived,

arranging to have the drug dealers attacked with a hammer. >> this is what they do when they take four pounds. this right here. >> reporter: in retaliation friends of the drug dealers went after niko's friend and teammate instead of isaiah. >> do you have any comment? >> no comment on isaiah. >> reporter: isaiah smith was sentenced to 13 years in prison for burglary, robbery, and assault in connection with the drug heist. the two women who lured niko and his teammate to 22 harvest street were each sentenced to more than a dozen years in prison after agreeing to testify against the attackers. all of the men in the cell phone video also went to prison for niko's kidnapping and torture, including lydell strickland, who laughed when a judge sentenced him to 155 years. >> i hope and wish that they would be in jail forever. >> reporter: after leaving the hospital niko went back home to

chicago. the university of rochester allowed him to graduate without returning to campus. >> can you sleep through the night? >> yeah. i mean, at first it was definitely hard. you know, nighttimes and being alone and like crowded areas definitely like harder things for me. >> reporter: determined to rehab both his mind and his body, niko joined more than 27,000 people in chicago to run his first road race since the attack. >> runners set. go! >> just moving forward and trying to forget about the past and focus on positive, good things. >> niko. all right niko! >> i made the conscious decision to live, survive, and overcome the challenge i was faced with. and that's exactly what i did. >> reporter: for "nightline" i'm tisha thompson in chicago. >> our thanks to tisha for that report.

and next, he swims like a fish. but is it enough to beat a shark? michael phelps in a race against a great white. ♪ ♪ more kinds of crab than ever, new dishes, and all your favorites. only while crabfest lasts. red lobster. now this is seafood. [ intense music playing ] ] it's here, but it's going by fast. the opportunity of the year is back: the mercedes-benz summer event. get to your dealer today for incredible once-a-season offers, and start firing up those grilles.

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super swimmer michael phelps is the most decorated olympian of all time. but his next opponent literally smells blood in the water. a natural since birth who's never needed coaching and eats people like phelps alive. so is he scared? he should be. here's abc's t.j. holmes. >> this isn't even close! michael phelps is swimming away from everybody! >> reporter: no man has been

more successful in the water than michael phelps. >> new world record! >> reporter: the swimming legend retired after last year's rio games. as the most decorated olympian of all time with 23 gold medals. >> michael phelps has done it again! >> i'd raced the fastest swimmers on the planet. except for one. >> reporter: but this weekend in a once-in-a-lifetime event the 32-year-old golden boy is coming back for one final race. >> am i faster than a shark? >> reporter: wait. did he just say shark? >> no, we're not crazy. it's billed as phelps versus shark. you can't actually outswim a great white shark, can you? >> we'll have to see. >> come on. >> we'll have to wait and see. >> reporter: come on now. the spectacle billed as man versus mega fish was put together by the discovery channel for shark week, the yearly week-long homage to our cuddly sea friends, the sharks. >> what would you say your relationship with sharks has been up until you went through this process? >> fascinated.

racing a shark or being in the water with sharks was something i always wanted to dpop. >> reporter: i know what you're thinking. how is this even possible? surely they're not going to put the golden boy -- >> that's insane. >> reporter: -- in open water right next tie greo a great whi. a shark expert explains. >> the show is michael going on a journey to south africa to see great white sharks and for us together to try to see how fast great white sharks can actually go. and we would compare that to michael's speed. >> discovery is saying we want you to race a great white. what did you think when you first heard that? >> the first thing that popped in my head was safety. i mean, that's the number one concern now, being a father and having a family. once we figured out that it was safe for us to do it, you know, we weren't side by side. it's not like i was racing a shark neck and neck. >> reporter: let me be clear. despite the punchy music and pumped-up title michael phelps is not racing side by side with a great white shark. nobody's that crazy. did that cross your mind for a second, is this what these people want me to soon as i hea

was like there's no way they think i'm doing it side by side, right? >> first time i'm diving with great whites. >> we didn't do it in a swimming pool. >> reporter: how did you all ensure safety for this thing? >> we had 10 to 14 divers underneath us. we obviously can't judge where a shark's going to swim but thankfully we didn't have any visitors come up. and yeah, it went perfectly. >> this is going to be awesome. >> there's one on your right, guys. coming in here. michael, guys. coming in on the bay. ♪ >> that was a shark. >> i saw that one. saw that one. >> reporter: phelps says he's trying to raise awareness to get the message out that sharks are not the man-hunting beasts we know from "jaws." >> you know, i think a lot of

people really only think of sharks as predators and aggressive and all they want to do is eat us. and you know, hopefully with the shows that i was a part of here, you know, we can get the message out that it's not the case. >> reporter: but does the greatest of all time stand a chance against the titan of the deep? let's match them up. phelps is 6'4", weighs in somewhere around 200 pounds. the great white shark, meanwhile, can be between 11 to 21 feet long and can weigh over 2,000 pounds. not really a good start for team human. >> great whites are just a marvel of evolution. they are built for speed. their body shape is built like a bullet. that makes them super hydrodynamic in the water. and they've got this huge tail that's built with a shape like two symmetrical crescent moons. >> bullet-shaped body, huge tail. okay. >> a 5,000 pound shark can swim 25 miles an hour. >> top speed 25 miles an hour. what's the fastest you've swum? >> the fastest i've done it

without fins is probably like 6. >> reporter: phelps is enlisting a little technological help. >> this is a step above the monofin. this is to mimic the white shark's tail. >> it's got something called a hollow keel, a structural support that buttresses the tail that allows extra power and strength. >> just putting on this fin is going to make me the fastest. >> yeah. >> i should have done this all along. >> that was a little transition that i had to work into, but i think we came up with a way to swim the fastest and you guys will see it on sunday. >> reporter: two people who will definitely be watching, michael's wife nicole and their 1-year-old son boomer. >> i mean, she was stoked too. she wanted to get in the water with them too. >> reporter: do you want him to be a competitive swimmer, boomer? >> if he wants. you know, i'm definitely never going to pressure him to do it. >> reporter: but it would be cool to see, wouldn't it? >> it would be awesome. he does like the water. he enjoys being in there. he's very comfortable in it. he knows how to blow bubbles, knows how to flip on his back. but if he's truly passionate about it, then great. i'll help him along the way but

definitely not something i would pressure him on. >> reporter: even though he says he's retired from competitive swimming phelps insists that practicing for this shark race is not practice for the tokyo olympics. >> you've repeatedly said that 2020 is out. do you think you would be physically healthy enough to compete in the three years if you wanted to? >> i think if i wanted to i could. i don't think -- i'm not going to say can't. even though i'm out of the water and retired from the competitive side of it, i love swimming. it's going to be a part of my life forever. >> reporter: do you reserve the right to change your mind about 2020? >> no. i mean, for me like i just really have no desire. >> reporter: so if this is his last race, for real, will we see the great one win gold against mother nature? we'll all have to wait to find out. for "nightline" i'm t.j. holmes in new york. >> "phelps versus shark" airs this sunday on discovery's shark week. we'll be right back.

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