Facts about Michael Phelps
Michael Phelps Biography
Swimmer Michael Phelps has won 28 Olympic medals, more than anyone in history. He has competed in the Summer Olympic games in 2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2016.
Michael Phelps was only 15 when he made the American team for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. He placed fifth in the 200 meter butterfly, but his appearance there made him the youngest male Olympian since 1932, when 14-year-old Japanese swimmer Kusuo Kitamura won the 1500-meter freestyle at Los Angeles. Phelps’s specialty is the shorter races, 100 to 400 meters in length.
His records, world records and awards are almost too numerous to mention: he set his first world record at age 15 (the 200 meter butterfly at the 2001 U.S. Spring Nationals), was named USA Swimmer of the Year six times between 2001 and 2007, and set an unprecedented five individual world records at in one meet at the 2003 world championships in Barcelona.
Michael Phelps won six gold and two bronze medals at the 2004 Olympics in Athens, then won an even more remarkable eight gold medals at the 2008 Olympics in Beijing (breaking the record of seven gold medals set by swimmer Mark Spitz in 1972). In Beijing he qualified in eight events and won gold medals in every event, swimming for new world records in the 400 meter individual medley and the 200 meter freestyle. Phelps entered seven events at the London Olympics of 2012, winning golds in the men’s 4×200-meter freestyle relay, the 200-meter individual medley, the 100-meter butterfly and the 4×100 medley relay, plus silvers in the 4×100-meter relay and in the 200-meter butterfly. At that point his 22 total medals made him the most-decorated Olympian of all time.
Phelps announced his retirement after the London Olympics, but in 2014 he announced a comeback. In 2016 he again made Team USA, and won five more gold medals at those games, giving him 28 medals (including 23 gold medals) in all.
Extra credit
Michael Phelps is 6’4″ tall and reportedly has size 14 feet… He has a son with model Nicole Johnson: Boomer Robert Phelps was born on May 5, 2016. Phelps and Johnson were married in June of 2016. Nicole Johnson was Miss California USA of 2010… Michael Phelps won the 2003 Sullivan Award, given to the best amateur athlete in the United States… Gymnast Larissa Latynina held the previous career record for Olympic medals, with 18: She won six each at the Olympics of 1956, 1960, and 1964… Michael Phelps went to the University of Michigan but was ineligible to swim there, having accepted a sponsorship deal from Speedo swim wear. He later won a $1 million bonus from Speedo for winning eight gold medals in Beijing… According to The San Francisco Chronicle, fans in Beijing nicknamed Michael Phelps the “Half-Man Half-Fish” and “Deep Sea Frog.”