The World Competes

The weather is starting to warm up around here (maybe not everywhere, but I live in Arizona), and I’ve started to think about my summer plans. It’s a good time to start thinking about some summer Olympians. While the summer Olympics has some excellent sports, when you think about summer, you can’t help but to think about swimming.

If you were to ask 100 Americans to name a summer Olympian, more than likely, most of them would say Michael Phelps. While athletes like Shawn Johnson and Usain Bolt also come to mind, Phelps piqued the interest of quite a few people in 2008, when he broke the record for the most gold medals won in a single Olympics.

Phelps’ first turn at the Olympics was in 2000, where he competed in the Sydney Olympics at age 15. He didn’t win any medals that year, but he did get some valuable experience, that he put to good use in the 2004 Athens Olympics, where he won six gold and two bronze medals. In 2008, he beat that total, winning eight gold medals, and beating Mark Spitz’s record of seven golds in one Olympics.

Phelps is an ambassador for this summer’s first Youth Olympic Games. He also plans to compete in the 2012 Olympics, but he has said that he doesn’t plan on trying to repeat or better his feat.