Michael Phelps became the first athlete to win six or more medals in three successive Olympic Games. The American swimmer achieved this feat by winning the gold medal in the 4x100m medley at London’s Aquatics Centre on Saturday (August 4). Phelps swam the third butterfly leg to help the United States past Japan in three minutes 29.35 seconds. The winning time missed tying the Olympic record by a hundredth of a second, but Phelps did not seem to care. He waited with his teammates Matt Grevers and Brendan Hansen for the relay’s final swimmer, the freestyler Nathan Adrian, to complete the race, then wrapped all three in a hug. The medal was Phelps’s 22nd overall, the most by any Olympian; his 18th gold; and his 6th in London. Phelps’s week has been something of a farewell tour, marked at different times by sadness or smiles, memories and melancholy. He has seemed to soften around the edges, letting people into a life so long closed to outsiders as he pursued swimming history, but he never lost his edge.
PHILIPS’ PERFORMANCE IN OLYMPIC GAMES:
Olympics G S B Total
Sydney 2000 – – – –
Athens 2004 6 – 2 8
Beijing 2008 8 – – 8
London 2012 4 2 – 6
Total 18 2 2 22
MOST MEDALS IN LONDON 2012:
Athlete G S B Total
Michael Phelps (USA) 4 – 2 6
Missy Franklin (USA) 4 – 1 5
Allison Schmitt (USA) 3 1 1 5
Ryan Lochte (USA) 2 2 1 5
Alicia Coutts (Australia) 1 3 1 5