Michael Phelps
Michael Phelps
Michael Fred Phelps II is an American competition swimmer and the most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 22 medals in three Olympiads. Phelps also holds the all-time records for Olympic gold medals, Olympic gold medals in individual events, and Olympic medals in individual events for a male. In winning eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, Phelps took the record away from fellow American swimmer Mark Spitzfor the most first-place finishes at any single Olympic...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionSwimmer
Date of Birth30 June 1985
CityBaltimore, MD
CountryUnited States of America
Why is it such a big deal what I'm swimming?
I know it won't be eight medals again. If you want to compare me to that, that's your decision, not mine. I'm going out there to try to accomplish the things that I have in my mind and in my heart.
Every day after I wake up, I think, 'Wait... this can't be real; I'm still going to wake up.'
I am 26 and, and I don't recover as fast as I have in the past.
I consider myself normal. I've spent 20 years in the pool. I consider that something that's normal.
I learned how fast you can go from being an international hero to being a reference in a joke on a late night talk show.
I've been able to get an excitement back in the water.
If I didn't swim my best, I'd think about it at school, at dinner, with my friends. It would drive me crazy.
I like to get in my own world. When I'm getting ready for a meet, I always have headphones on, listening to rap music to get myself fired up
I wanted to get the fastest time in the world this year, but with everything going on, it's a pretty decent swim, ... I knew I was under world record pace. You could tell by the crowd. You can always tell at these meets when something good is going on because of the crowd.
When we got in the race, we knew what we had to do and knew what we wanted to do. Having three of four guys from the American record 800 free relay is a pretty solid relay, so we thought we could take a crack at the U.S. Open record tonight. We're all a little tired, but that's fifth-fastest American relay ever, so it's not a bad time. We ended tonight on a great note.
I finished my career the way I wanted to.
It doesn't matter what else is going on. When you walk into your arena or your - whatever you excel at, you're there to take care of the job that you have to do.
Coming into tonight, I knew it was going to be a great race, ... In the 400, Laszlo put up a 4:10.1 earlier in the year, and so you expect him to put up a good time in (the 200). I knew Ryan was going to be fast coming off his short course season, and he's improved a lot since Athens, so I just wanted to go out there and relax a bit and go out there and do what I had to do.