Michel Phelps

Michael Phelps

Michael Fred Phelps II (born June 30, 1985) is a retired American swimmer and the most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 22 medals. Phelps also holds the all-time records for Olympic gold medals with 18, Olympic gold medals in individual events with 11 and Olympic medals in individual events for a male with 13. In winning eight gold medals at the 2008 BeijingGames, Phelps took the record for the most first-place finishes at any single Olympic Games. In the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Phelps won four gold and two silver medals, making him the most successful athlete of the Games for the third Olympics in a row.
Phelps is the long course world recordholder in the 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly and 400-meter individual medley as well as theformer longcourse world recordholder in the 200-meter freestyle and 200-meter individual medley. He has won a total of 71 medals in major international long-course competition, 57 gold, 11 silver, and three bronze spanning the Olympics, the World, and the Pan Pacific Championships. Phelps's international titles and record-breaking performances have earned him the World Swimmer of the Year Awardseven times and American Swimmer of the Year Award nine times as well as the FINA Swimmer of the Year Award in 2012. His unprecedented Olympic success in 2008 earned Phelps Sports Illustrated magazine's Sportsman of the Year award.
After the 2008 Summer Olympics, Phelps started the Michael Phelps Foundation, which focuses on growing the sport of swimming and promoting healthier lifestyles. He expectsto do further work with his foundation after the 2012 Olympics, which he has said will be his last.

Early life
Phelps was born and raised in the Rodgers Forge neighborhood of Towson, Maryland, located just north of Baltimore. Michael is the youngest of three children. His mother, Deborah Sue is a middle school principal. His father, Michael Fred Phelps, is a retired Maryland state trooper,Phelps's parents divorced in 1994, and his father remarried in 2000.
Phelps began swimming at the age of seven, partly because of the influence of his sisters and partly to provide him with an outlet for his energy. When Phelps was in the sixth grade, he was diagnosed with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). By the age of 10, he held a national record for his age group, and Phelpsbegan to train at the North Baltimore Aquatic Clubunder coach Bob Bowman. More age group records followed, and Phelps's rapid improvement culminated in his qualifying for the 2000 Summer Olympics at the age of 15 and becoming the youngest male to make a U.S. Olympic swim team in 68 years. While he did not win a medal, he did make the finals and finished fifth in the 200-meter butterfly.
At theWorld Championship Trials for the 2001 World Aquatics Championships, Phelps broke the world record in the 200-meter butterfly to become, at 15 years and 9 months, the youngest man ever to set a swimming world record, breaking the record previously held by Ian Thorpe when he lowered the 400-meter freestyle world record at 16 years, 10 months. At the World Championships in Fukuoka, Phelps broke hisown world record in the 200-meter butterfly en route to becoming a world champion for the first time.

2004 Olympics
In his first event, the 400-meter individual medley, Phelps won with a world record time of 4:08.26 to win his first Olympic gold medal. Phelps had raced in a preliminary heat of the medley relay, he was also awarded a gold medal along with the team members who competed in thefinal. In winning six gold and two bronze medals, Phelps, still a teenager, had the second-best performance ever at a single Olympics, behind Mark Spitz's seven gold medals in Munich in 1972. Also, he became the second male swimmer ever to win more than two individual titles at a single Games with four, tying Spitz's four from 1972.

2008 Olympics
At the 2008 U.S. Olympic Team Trials, Phelps...