Michael Phelps – The Greatest Olympian

On Sunday August 17, 2008 a 23 year-old swam his way into the record books and into immortality. Michael Phelps won 8 gold medals in a single Olympics and set 7 world records in the process. Phelps mastered 8 different events and made it known he was the best in the world at all of them. He now holds the record for most gold medals in a single Olympics (8) and most gold medals won in an Olympic career (14) and he is only 23 years old.

Michael Phelps may be the most discussed name in the entire world right now as his attempt at 8 gold medals in a single Olympics has been all everyone is talking about. People who know nothing about swimming or even watch the Olympics know what Phelps was trying to do and now know what he has accomplished.

In the summer of 2004 Phelps attempted to break the Olympic record for most gold medals won in a single Olympics (7 by US swimmer Mark Spitz in 1972). Phelps came up short in 2004 however winning 6 golds and 2 bronzes. This “failure” as Phelps called it urged him on as he vowed he would attempt greatness again in 2008.

Phelps came into the 2008 Olympics in Beijing highly publicized about what he was planning on doing and that anything less than 8 golds would be considered a monumental failure. He had 17 swims in 9 days and very few people believed that he would be able to do it as they believed everything would have to go right for Phelps and luckily for him it did.

There were numerous close calls however as every gold didn’t come quite as easily as Phelps would have liked. In the first relay event it took a miracle swim by Jason Lezak to ensure that Phelps would not fail early. In the 200m Butterfly Phelps looked sluggish and barely managed to win as he claimed afterwards that his goggles filled up with water. However the closest call was in the 100m Butterfly where going into the final 5 meters Phelps was behind and managed to barely win by just 0.01 seconds.

The magnitude of the accomplishment was not lost on some of Phelps’s competitors. "I just don't think there is a perspective for him," said Simon Burnett, British anchor of the 4x100 medley relay freestyle, when asked to put Phelps in perspective. "He's beyond everything we know. In Athens when he was going for eight golds, I said it would never happen -- not in this day and age with semifinal swims and the competition level. Phelps has taken every expectation and broken it. He seems to be the only guy who sees the impossible as possible, and that's what makes him the best. Once he crosses the threshold, other people are able to foresee it happening. If he can do it, we can do it. But he's always one step ahead of us."

Phelps now has the honor of being called the greatest Olympian of all time a title and maybe even the best athlete of all time. His 14 career gold medals absolutely shatter the old standard which was 9 and in 2012 at the Olympics in London England he could add to that total. But for now Phelps claims that he is just looking forward to going back home to Baltimore and relaxing.

Michael Phelps was able to achieve what some people thought to be impossible. He broke world records and set new standards of excellence for all athletes. He did it with pure talent, some help from his teammates, and a little luck but he managed to accomplish what he set out to do.

Phelps can now let the spotlight shine on someone else for a change as he sits back and reflects on one of the greatest achievements in sports history.