Phelps was born in Baltimore, Maryland, and raised in the Rodgers Forge neighborhood of nearby Towson. He attended Rodgers Forge Elementary, Dumbarton Middle School, and Towson High School. Phelps is the youngest of three children. His mother, Deborah Sue "Debbie" Phelps (nee Davisson), is a middle school principal.

On July 28, 2012, Phelps placed eighth in the morning prelims for the 400-meter individual medley. Phelps, the two-time defending Olympic champion, won his heat in 4 minutes, 13.33 seconds with a time that was well off his world record of 4:03.84 set four years ago in Beijing, when Phelps won a record eight gold medals. He out-touched Laszlo Cseh by 0.07 seconds in his heat to qualify last for the final, locking out Cseh. In his first finals of the Summer Olympics, Phelps placed fourth behind fellow American Ryan Lochte, Thiago Pereira of Brazil, and Kosuke Hagino of Japan in the 400-meter individual medley. It was the first time Phelps failed to medal in an Olympic event since 2000. The next night, in his second event of the Games, he got a silver as a member of the 4x100-meter free relay. Phelps swam the fastest leg of the US relay team and the second-fastest of anyone in the race. On July 31, 2012, Phelps won a silver medal in the 200-meter butterfly behind South African Chad le Clos by 5/100ths of a second, and a gold medal in the 4x200-meter freestyle relay, thereby equaling and then surpassing Larisa Latynina to become the all-time record holder for most Olympic medals won. Latynina was present at the race and asked to be the presenter of Phelps's medal, but was told that Olympic rules would not allow it. She called Phelps deserving of the record. On August 2, 2012, Phelps won his 16th Olympic gold medal when he edged out Ryan Lochte to win the 200-meter individual medley with a time of 1:54.27, and by that victory also became the first male swimmer to win the same event in three consecutive Olympics. Rebecca Soni and Phelps (twice) are the only swimmers to successfully defend an individual title from the 2008 Games. This win also marked Phelps's fifth Olympic title in the individual medley, breaking the record of four shared by Hungarian Tamas Darnyi and Ukrainian Yana Klochkova. He repeated the achievement of winning the same event at three Olympics the following evening, winning the Olympic gold medal in the 100 m butterfly, his last individual event. After two very close victories in the 100 m butterfly at the 2004 and 2008 Olympics (by 0.04 and 0.01 sec, respectively), in this race Phelps beat Le Clos and Yevgeny Korotyshkin, who tied for silver, by 0.23 sec. Phelps's final event was the 4x100-meter medley relay in which he went on to win his 18th career gold medal and his 22nd overall. By winning 4 gold and 2 silver medals, Phelps concluded the 2012 Olympics as the most successful swimmer of the meet for the third Olympics in a row. After his last event, the international swimming federation FINA honored Phelps with an award commemorating his standing as the most decorated Olympian ever. CANNOTANSWER

what took place in London?

On July 28, 2012, Phelps placed eighth in the morning prelims for the 400-meter individual medley.