Profile: How Michael Phelps put scandal behind him to become an Olympic legend
Michael Phelps holds the record for winning the most medals of any Olympic athlete in history. His career was not without drama, but he retired after the Rio Olympics in 2016 leaving a legacy few will ever equal.
Michael Phelps, the most successful swimmer in history, was determined to end his career with more gold medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
But in 2014 the dream suddenly became a nightmare. Phelps was stopped in his car and charged with drink driving. He was convicted of the same offence ten years previously and could expect no mercy from the judge. More important to his medal hopes was the ban imposed by the USA swimming team, that meant he could not compete again until April 2015.
With his training and competition schedule disrupted, few people expected the swimming legend to compete at his best in Rio. But he delivered an explosive performance, clinching gold medals in the men’s 400 freestyle relay, 200-meter butterfly and 4x200-meter freestyle relay. The achievement in Rio brought Phelps’ career to a close with a stunning total of 19 Olympic medals, a record in any sport that seems unlikely to be broken in the near future.
Michael Phelps was born on June 30, 1985, in Baltimore, Maryland. The youngest of three children, Michael Phelps grew up in the neighbourhood of Rodgers Forge. His father, Fred, was a state trooper; mother Debbie was a middle-school principal.
Phelps began swimming when his two older sisters, Whitney and Hilary, joined a local swimming team. At the age of seven, reports say 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 met his coach, Bob Bowman, when he started training at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club at the Meadowbrook Aquatic and Fitness Center.
In the spring of 2001, Phelps set the first world record in his career in the 200-meter butterfly, becoming the youngest male swimmer in history, at 15 years and nine months, to ever set a world swimming record.
Phelps became a superstar at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, winning eight medals including six gold. In the 400-meter individual medley, the 19-year-old champion broke his own world record.
At the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China, Phelps took his collection of gold medals to 14, breaking swimmer Mark Spitz’s 1972 record of seven golds. The year after his incredible performance in Beijing, he was suspended from swimming for three months after trying to buy photographs showing him smoking marijuana.
After the London Olympics in 2012, Phelps announced he was retiring from swimming. However, the retirement lasted only a few months before Phelps decided to return, refusing to rule out the possibility of competing in the 2016 Rio Games.
His comeback suffered a major blow when he was banned from swimming after being convicted of drink-driving in 2014. After the incident, which made headlines around the world, Phelps said: “I recognize that this is not my first lapse in judgment, and I am extremely disappointed with myself.
“Swimming is a major part of my life, but right now I need to focus my attention on me as an individual, and do the necessary work to learn from this experience and make better decisions in the future.”
And focus is exactly what he did … on the 2016 Rio Olympic Games.
At the age of 31, Michael Phelps became the first American male swimmer to compete in five Olympics. At the Games, he was in unbeatable form, taking his gold medal tally to 19, watched by girlfriend Nicole Johnson, their baby Boomer, and Phelps’ mother Debbie.
“I say this a lot, but every single day I’m living a dream come true,” Phelps told NBC Sports. “As a kid, I wanted to do something that no one had ever done before, and I’m enjoying it. Being able to finish how I won is just something very special to me and this is why you are seeing more and more emotion on the medal podium.”
Although his teammate Ryan Lochte told media outlets that Phelps would be back in 2020, Michael Phelps confirmed to reporters 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. After 24 years in swimming, I’m happy with how things finished. 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. And yeah … I’m ready to spend some time with Boomer and Nicole”, he said.
