Michael Phelps retired with more Olympic medals than 161 countries
When Michael Phelps announced his second retirement in August 2016, his Olympic haul stood at 28 medals, 23 of them gold. That tally outstripped the combined total of 161 entire nations. He had started swimming at seven mostly because his mother wanted him to learn, and because he had energy to burn.
Phelps grew up in Towson, near Baltimore, the youngest of three children. His parents divorced when he was nine, a split he later said hit the siblings hard. At school he was bullied over his ears and his ADHD, which was diagnosed in sixth grade, and the frustration pushed him deeper into the pool. By ten he held a national age-group record in the 100-metre butterfly, and from eleven he trained under Bob Bowman, a coach he likened to a drill sergeant and followed from Baltimore to Michigan and later to Arizona.
The rise was fast. At 15 he made the 2000 US Olympic team, the youngest male swimmer to do so in 68 years, and placed fifth in the 200-metre butterfly. A few months later, aged 15 years and 9 months, he broke that event's world record, the youngest man ever to set one in swimming, beating the previous mark held by Ian Thorpe. At the 2003 World Championships he broke five world records in a single meet.
Then came the Olympic run. In Athens in 2004 he won six golds and two bronzes, equalling the gymnast Alexander Dityatin's eight medals at a single Games. In Beijing four years later he won eight golds, breaking Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven. London brought four more golds and two silvers, after which he retired, only to return in 2014. At Rio in 2016, his fifth Olympics, he carried the American flag and won five golds and a silver, finishing as the Games' most successful athlete for the fourth straight time.
One persistent legend holds that he ate 12,000 calories a day. Phelps says that figure is exaggerated, even for his teenage years. His other numbers need no inflating: 13 individual Olympic golds, 16 individual Olympic medals, and eight World Swimmer of the Year awards.
Source: Michael Phelps
