page_title: Michael Phelps
section_title: Rio de Janeiro
hierarchical_section_title: Michael Phelps / Career / 2016 Summer Olympics / Rio de Janeiro
caption_attribution_description: Português: Rio de Janeiro - Estados Unidos vence o revezamento 4 x 100m nado livre nos Jogos Olímpicos Rio 2016, no Estádio Aquático.
context_page_description: Michael Fred Phelps II is an American former competitive swimmer and the most successful and most decorated Olympian of all time, with a total of 28 medals. Phelps also holds the all-time records for Olympic gold medals, Olympic gold medals in individual events, and Olympic medals in individual events. When he won eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games, Phelps broke fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven first-place finishes at any single Olympic Games. At the 2004 Summer Olympics in Athens, Phelps had already tied the record of eight medals of any color at a single Games by winning six gold and two bronze medals. At the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, Phelps won four gold and two silver medals, and at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, he won five gold medals and one silver. This made him the most successful athlete of the Games for the fourth Olympics in a row.
  Phelps is the long course world record holder in the men's 400-meter individual medley as well as the former long course world record holder in the 200-meter freestyle, 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly, and 200-meter individual medley.
context_section_description: Phelps was chosen to be the American flag bearer at the opening ceremony, which was the first Olympic opening ceremony that he would attend. Phelps was also voted by the U.S. Olympic swim team as one of six team captains for the US delegation to the Olympics. He displayed a relaxed sociable demeanor in the athletes' village and in press conferences; this pleasant behavior was in stark contrast to his isolation in previous Olympics. He was accompanied by fiancée Nicole Johnson and son Boomer.
  In his first event on August 7, the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay, he won his first gold medal of the 2016 Games and his 19th Olympic gold medal overall. Phelps swam the second leg with what his coach Bob Bowman described as "maybe the best turn that's ever been done", overtaking France's Fabien Gilot to give his American teammates a lead which they would not relinquish. Phelps's leg proved to be the decisive factor in the race, and Gilot later remarked "As fast as my teammates were, the extraterrestrial that is Phelps was faster". Phelps achieved a split time of 47.12, the fourth-fastest of the field (the three fastest times were posted by the team anchors), which was also faster than any of his relay splits at the last three Olympics.
  In his second event on August 9, the 200-meter butterfly, he became the first swimmer in history to make five finals in the same event, after finishing 5th in 2000, 1st in 2004 and 2008, and 2nd in 2012. At Rio, he won the title that he had lost to Chad le Clos four years earlier in London, edging Masato Sakai by 0.04 s. Phelps stated that winning back this title had been the main goal during his comeback. The preliminary and final of that event was heavily hyped as a rematch between Phelps and Le Clos. The relationship between Le Clos and Phelps had been cordial back in 2012–13 but it deteriorated in 2014 when Phelps came back from retirement and suggested that the current butterfly times were slow. In the ready room prior to the preliminary race, Le Clos's shadow boxing while Phelps "glowered in a corner" spawned the Internet meme with the hashtag #PhelpsFace. Le Clos's Wikipedia biography was even vandalized after the event final. At age 31, the victory made Phelps not only the oldest male champion, but also the oldest individual champion in Olympic swimming history, beating the records set by Duke Kahanamoku in 1920, and Inge de Bruijn in 2004 respectively. Phelps also became the first swimmer to win individual gold medals 12 years apart. Both these records were broken by Anthony Ervin three days later.
  Also on August 9, Phelps won his 21st gold medal in the 4 × 200 m freestyle relay together with Conor Dwyer, Townley Haas, and Ryan Lochte. For Phelps and Lochte, this was their 4th consecutive gold medal in this event, an all-time record in swimming for any event.
  On August 11, Phelps won his 22nd gold medal in the 200 m individual medley. He beat Kosuke Hagino, the 400 m individual medley champion, by 1.95 seconds. This was Phelps's 4th consecutive gold medal in the event as well as his 4th in the Games. He became the first swimmer to win the same individual event four times, surpassing the previous record of three held by Dawn Fraser and Krisztina Egerszegi. He also became the third Olympian to win the same individual event four times, after athletes Al Oerter and Carl Lewis. With that 13th individual gold medal, Phelps broke a 2,168-year-old ancient Olympic record, set by Leonidas of Rhodes, who had held the most Olympic individual titles of all time, with twelve.
  In the 100 m butterfly, Phelps was defeated in his last individual event of the Rio Olympics by Singaporean Joseph Schooling, when he earned joint silver along with Chad le Clos and László Cseh.
  On August 13, in the 4 × 100-meter medley relay, Phelps ended his career with another gold medal, his 23rd at the Olympics and his 28th medal overall. Together with Ryan Murphy, Cody Miller, and Nathan Adrian, swimming as the butterfly leg of the medley, they broke the Olympic record, and won the United States' 1001st all time Olympic gold medal, 
caption: Phelps with Nathan Adrian, Ryan Held and Caeleb Dressel, after winning the 4 × 100 m freestyle relay
exif: {"Image ImageDescription": "Rio de Janeiro - Estados Unidos vence o revezamento 4 x 100m nado livre nos Jogos Ol\u00edmpicos Rio 2016,  no Est\u00e1dio Aqu\u00e1tico. (Fernando Fraz\u00e3o/Ag\u00eancia Brasil)", "Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "Canon EOS-1D X Mark II", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5.4 (Windows)", "Image DateTime": "2016:08:08 02:05:39", "Image Artist": "Fernando Fraz\u00e3o/Ag\u00eancia Brasil", "Image Copyright": "EBC-EMPRESA BRASIL DE COMUNICA\u00c7\u00c3O/Ag\u00eancia Brasil. Uso sob a Licen\u00e7a Creative Commons Atribui\u00e7\u00e3o 3.0 Brasil. CR\u00c9DITO FOTOGR\u00c1FICO OBRIGAT\u00d3RIO: FERNANDO FRAZ\u00c3O/AG\u00caNCIA BRASIL", "Image ExifOffset": "632", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1226", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "16527", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/400", "EXIF FNumber": "4", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Shutter Priority", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2000", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2016:08:08 00:26:13", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2016:08:08 00:26:13", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "540241/62500", "EXIF ApertureValue": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "0", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "400", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "93", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "93", "EXIF FocalPlaneXResolution": "2736000/719", "EXIF FocalPlaneYResolution": "1824000/479", "EXIF FocalPlaneResolutionUnit": "2", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF BodySerialNumber": "022011000874", "EXIF LensSpecification": "[400, 400, 0/0, 0/0]", "EXIF LensModel": "\u00fc", "EXIF LensSerialNumber": "0860000010"}