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Michael Phelps is an American swimmer who holds the record for the most Olympics medals won by any athlete at 28, including 23 gold medals and 13 individual golds. Phelps competed in his first Olympics at the age of 15, as part of the U.S. men's swim team. He was the first American male swimmer to earn a spot on five Olympic teams and also made history as the oldest individual gold medalist in Olympic swimming history at the age of 28.
Michael Fred Phelps was born on June 30, 1985, in Baltimore, Maryland. The youngest of three children, Phelps grew up in the neighborhood of Rodgers Forge. His father, Fred, an all-around athlete, was a state trooper and his mother, Debbie, was a middle-school principal. When Phelps' parents divorced in 1994, he and his sisters lived with their mother, with whom Phelps grew very close.
Phelps began swimming when his two older sisters, Whitney (born 1978) and Hilary (born 1980), joined a local swim team. Whitney tried out for the U.S. Olympic team in 1996, at the age of 15, but injuries derailed her career. At age seven, Phelps was still "a little scared" to put his head underwater, so his instructors allowed him to float around on his back. Not surprisingly, the first stroke he mastered was the backstroke.
After he saw swimmers Tom Malchow and Tom Dolan compete at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, Phelps began to dream of becoming a champion. He launched his swimming career at the Loyola High School pool. He met his coach, Bob Bowman, when he started training at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club at the Meadowbrook Aquatic and Fitness Center. The coach immediately recognized Phelps' talents and fierce sense of competition and began an intense training regime together. By 1999, Phelps had made the U.S. National B Team.
Phelps followed his coach to the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, where Bowman coached the Wolverines' swim team, to study sports marketing and management. Meanwhile, Phelps continued to establish world records at the 2006 Pan Pacific Championships in Victoria, British Columbia, and the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne, Australia.
At the age of 15, Phelps became the youngest American male swimmer to compete at an Olympic Games in 68 years. While he didn't win a medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he would soon become a major force in competitive swimming.
In the spring of 2001, Phelps set the world record in the 200-meter butterfly, becoming the youngest male swimmer in history (at 15 years and 9 months) to ever set a world swimming record.
Phelps then broke his own record at the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, with a time of 1:54:58, earning his first international medal.
Phelps continued to set new marks at the 2002 U.S. Summer Nationals in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, establishing a new world record for the 400-meter individual medley, and U.S. records in the 100-meter butterfly and the 200-meter individual medley. The following year, at the same event, he broke his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley with a time of 4:09.09.
Shortly after graduating from Towson in 2003, 17-year-old Phelps set five world records, including the 200-meter individual medley at the World Championships in Barcelona, Spain, with a time of 1:56:04. Then during the U.S. trials for the 2004 Summer Olympics, he broke his own world again in the 400 meter individual medley, with a time of 4:08:41.
Phelps has accumulated a total of 28 medals at the Olympic Summer Games in Athens, Beijing, London and Rio — 23 gold, three silver and two bronze — setting the record for the most medal wins by any Olympic athlete. At the 2016 Olympic Games, he won one silver and five gold medals, becoming the oldest individual gold medalist in Olympic swimming history, as well as the first swimmer to win four consecutive golds in the same event, the 200-meter individual medley. Phelps has set 39 world records, the most of all time.
Phelps confirmed that he was retiring following the 2016 Summer Olympics.
"I've been able to do everything I've ever put my mind to in this sport. And 24 years in the sport. I'm happy with how things finished," he said. "I'm ready to retire. I'm happy about it. I'm in a better state of mind this time than I was four years ago."
Phelps is just under 6 feet, 4 inches tall. He has a disproportionately large wingspan, reaching a bit less than 6 feet 7 inches from fingertip to fingertip, and a torso with measurements that are more common in a man who measures 6 feet 8 inches tall.
When he broke the world record in the 100-meter butterfly at the 2009 World Championships, Phelps swam at an astonishingly speedy (or at least by human standards) 5.5 miles per hour. ESPN has put Phelps’ top swimming speed at 6 miles per hour.
Phelps married Nicole Johnson on June 13, 2016. After dating on and off since 2011, Phelps popped the question in February 2015. The couple was married in a private ceremony in Paradise Valley, Arizona, although their wedding was kept secret until October 2016.
Phelps and Johnson have three sons: Boomer Robert (b. May 5, 2016), Beckett Richard (b. February 12, 2018) and Maverick Nicolas (b. September 9, 2019).
For the 2017's Shark Week, Michael Phelps raced several breeds of sharks. The team developed a special device to measure each shark’s speed using bait. Phelps wore a monofin to approximate the movements of a shark (and get a bit of added propulsion). They did not swim the 100 meters side by side but rather individually in the same open water, with CGI images of the sharks displayed alongside Phelps as he raced. Their times were later compared.
"Honestly, my first thought when I saw the shark was, 'There's very little chance for me to beat him,'" Phelps said.
The hammerhead shark swam the distance at 15 miles per hour, while the great white shark swam at a whopping 26 miles per hour. Phelps only beat the reef shark by 0.2 seconds, clocking in at 6 miles per hour.
In addition to his successful swim career, Phelps has written two books, Beneath the Surface: My Story (2008) and No Limits: The Will to Succeed (2009).
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