Michael Phelps farewell? Swimming legend aims for one last medal on historic night in Rio
Phelps will be racing the butterfly leg of the 4x100m medley in what should be his very last race in an Olympic Games
Michael Phelps is about to exit the global sporting stage for the very last time (Photo: Getty Images/Clive Rose)
Olympic history will be made on the night of Saturday (13 August) when Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, swims his final race for Team USA.
The 4x100m medley will give Phelps an opportunity to add one final medal to his current haul of 27 and win an incredible 23rd Olympic gold.
Phelps will be swimming the butterfly leg of the medley.
Expect cheers, tears, tributes from all around him and a night to remember for all sports fans, wherever they are.
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Look back in awe
Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Phelps’s Olympic journey started as a precocious 15-year-old at Sydney 2000. In Australia, Phelps swam in the final of an event that he would dominate for the next two decades: the 200m butterfly. A fifth place finish marked him out as something special; just a year later he duly set the first of the many world records to his name.
Since he burst onto the Olympic scene at Sydney, Phelps has now won a barely credible 27 medals, including 22 golds, three silvers and two bronzes. In Rio on Saturday, he will have a final chance to add one more to that total.
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To put that into perspective, Phelps has won more Olympic medals than 91 whole countries and more golds than 108 different countries.
And there’s more.
Phelps’ 27 medals place him nine clear of the next most decorated Olympian: Ukrainian-born gymnast Larisa Latynina who competed for the Soviet Union between 1956 and 1964. His 22 gold medals is more than double that of any Olympian in history. At Beijing 2008, Phelps memorably picked up eight gold medals, eclipsing Mark Spitz’s record of seven golds at Munich 1972.
London 2012 saw Phelps pick up four more golds and two silvers, making him the most successful athlete at an individual Olympics for the third games in a row. Retirement followed, but in April 2014 Phelps made a comeback.
Three Rio golds plus a silver later, history beckons again.
Stormy waters
There have been downs as well as ups on the Phelps journey. Before Rio 2016, Phelps talked to Sports Illustrated about the battles he has had with depression. What’s more, the swimmer has twice been arrested for drink-driving offences, after which he admitted to needing help to move out of the ‘dark place’ he was in.
His success at getting his life in order outside of sport allowed him to attend the Rio games, as USA flagbearer no less.
All good things must come to an end at some point though, and for Michael Phelps that point is coming tonight.
Enjoy and savour every second of his final Olympic swim in the 4x100m medley relay. We will never see his like again.
