Micheal Phelps became a true champion when he won 8 Gold medals in all 8 events, breaking all records, at the swimming pool at the Beijing Olympics beating the highest individual medal record of Mark Spitz.
Do you know how he came about to be a champ? According to the news reports, he learned to swim because his mother forced him to do so. She was afraid that he might drown at the seaside or the pool, if he did not know how to swim. Thus he took swimming lessons and it was only very much later that he took part in any competitions for swimming. Apparently, he was also bullied a lot in school as a kid and that too inspired him to do better and become a better person.
What is even more surprising is the fact that his teachers always doubted his capabilities. Micheal Phelps revealed in an interview that one of his teachers said that he would never be successful. This was one major factor that drove Micheal Phelps to prove his mettle to the teacher and to the world at large, that he could and was capable of doing better. Thus he worked hard at everything in life and tried to better himself in whatever he did.
Another astonishing fact about Micheal Phelps is that he suffered from "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder". He was always restless and couldn't sit still for long. This also affected his capability to stay focussed. According to Micheal Phelps, getting into the water helped him to focus and that helped him to grow out of it.
Micheal Phelps, 23 years old has no time for love. According to him, he doesn't have any girlfriend waiting back at home for him. But then, who has any time for Love and romance when you have bigger and better things planned for the future? Yes, he is now all charged up to do better at the 2012 London Olympics and will no doubt spend all his waking moments trying to become faster and faster. All the women out there, wait till he is 30. He has been linked by the media with the US swimmer Amanda Beard, English model Lily Donaldson and Stephanie Rice too.
Did you know that Micheal Phelps has two sisters named Whitney and Hillary? Whitney is also a good swimmer and was a member of the 1994 World Championship Team.
Micheal Phelps loves other sports too and his favorite among them is baseball, and his sports hero is the basketball player Micheal Jordan.
All in all Micheal Phelps has won 16 Olympic Medals. 6 Gold medals and 2 Bronze medals were from the 2004 Athens and the rest of the 8 Gold medals from the Beijing Olympics. He is now ranked 2nd as the Most number of Olympic Medals won by an individual. The first on the list is the Soviet Gymnast Larissa Latynina who won a total of 18 medals out of which 9 were Gold medals spanning three Olympic Games.
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