MICHAEL PHELPS
The world all round swimmer Micheal Phelps is now focusing on USA Swimming’s World Championship trials.The trials are being held at Indianapolis’ IUPUI Natatorium from 7 July through 11 July. He will participate in only 4 events at swimming’s World Championship trials in the USA, including 100m freestyle. He will be able to challenge with famous swimming stars like France’s Alain Bernard and Frederic Bousquet and Australia’s Eamon Sullivan in the world championship.The world champion swimmer had also hold the records for most gold medals won in a Beijing Olympic games.
BIOGRAPHY
Michael Phelps was born on 30th June,1985 in Baltimore, Maryland. His father Fred Phelps was worked for the Maryland State Police and his mother Debbie is a middle school teacher. Fred was also a good athlete, and passed his ability on to his kids. Michael has two sisters,Whitney and Hillary. Both are good swimmers and Whitney was also a member of the 1994 World Championship Team. Phelps was graduated from Towson High School in 2003. He was started learning swimming from his sisters at the age of seven. At the age of 10, he was hold a national record for his age group. He had started his swimming career at ‘Towson’s Loyola High School’ pool. Phelps then met his coach, Bob Bowman, when he started training at the North Baltimore Aquatic Club at the Meadowbrook Aquatic and Fitness Center. By 1999, Phelps had made the U.S. National B Team. At the age of 15, he had qualified for the 2000 Summer Olympics and he had finished fifth place in the 200-meter butterfly. Michael ended the year ranked 7th in the world in the 200-meter butterfly and 44th in the 400-meter individual medley. During the spring of 2001, Phelps had set the world record in the 200-meter butterfly, and he became the youngest male swimmer in history to ever set a swimming world record. In the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, he had gained his first international medal and new world record for the 400-meter individual medley at U.S. Summer Nationals in Fort Lauderdale, Florida in 2002. At the age of 17, Phelps had set five records, including 200-meter individual medley at the World Championships in Barcelona, Spain and the U.S. trials for the 2004 Summer Olympics, he had broke his own world again in the 400 meter individual medley. Phelps had held the record of seven total gold medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics by competing in eight swimming events, and he would later equal this record with his eight gold medals in the 2008 Olympic Games. He had competed in the 2005 World Championships and won six medals. He had placed in first in five events at the Pan Pacific Championships in 2006. At the 2007 World Championships, Phelps had won seven gold medals. He had won 14 careers Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian. As of June, 2009, Phelps held seven world records in swimming. According to The San Francisco Chronicle, fans in Beijing was nicknamed Phelps as “Half-Man Half-Fish” and “Deep Sea Frog”.
HONORS AND AWARDS
The gold medalist swimmer had received many awards in his career. Phelps’s international titles and record breaking performances have earned him the ‘World Swimmer of the Year Award’ in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008 and ‘American Swimmer of the Year Award’ in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, and 2008. ‘The Golden Goggle Male Performance of the Year award’ in 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and ‘Golden Goggle Relay Performance’ of the year in 2006, 2007, 2008, ‘Golden Goggle Male Athlete of the Year’ in 2004, 2007, 2008, ‘ESPY Best Olympic Performance and Teen Choice Awards’ - Male Athlete in 2005, ‘USOC SportsMan of the Year Award’ in 2004, 2008, ‘USSA Athlete of the Year Award’, ‘World Championships Swimmer of the Meet and James E.Sullivan Award’ in 2003, ‘Laureus World Sports Sportsman of the Year Award’ nominated in 2004, 2005, 2008 and USA Olympic Team Member in 2000, 2004, 2008. He had won a total of 48 career medals thus far in major international competition, forty gold, six silver, and two bronze spanning the Olympics, the World, and the Pan Pacific Championships. His extraordinary Olympic success in 2008 earned ‘Sports Illustrated magazine’s’ ‘Sportsman of the Year award’.
