What if I told you that there is a man who has more Olympic gold medals than most countries have? I know it’s hard to believe, but his name is Micheal phelps. He is a 5-time Olympic athlete, the greatest athlete to ever compete in the Olympics.
Michael Phelps started swimming at the age of 7 so he could start to control his energy. But only a few years later, he was already setting national records for his age group. He would only improve from there.
According to the Olympic website, “A prodigy at his sport, he went to Sydney 2000 aged just 15 –the youngest man in the USA team for an Olympic Games in 68 years”. He swam the 200-meter butterfly and finished 5th overall.
Only 9 months later, at the US Spring National Championships in Austin, Texas, he set his first world record for the 200-meter butterfly with a time of 1:54.92, which was absolutely insane at the time. He became the youngest person to ever set a swimming world record.
In his entire career, he would compete in a total of 5 Olympic Games, winning 23 gold medals. He set the record for most Olympic gold medals, as well as the most Olympic gold medals won at 1 Olympics, at 8. As said on the Olympic website, “Phelps rewrote the record books, becoming the most decorated Olympian of all time.”
Just for comparison, the second place for most gold medals is only 1 more than what he won at one Olympics.
Overall, Michael Phelps deserves his title as a superhuman athlete, being one of the most athletic humans to ever walk the modern world.