Michael Fred

Athlete, Michael Fred Phelps was born on June 30, 1985, in Baltimore, Maryland, to Fred and Debbie Phelps. The youngest of three children, Michael and his sisters grew up in the neighborhood of Rodgers Forge. Fred, an all-around athlete, was a state trooper. Debbie was a middle-school principal. When Michael's parents divorced in 1994, the kids went to live with Debbie, and Michael grew very close to his mother. Phelps began swimming when his two older sisters, Whitney (born 1978) and Hilary (born 1980), joined a local swim team. Whitney tried out for the U.S. Olympic team in 1996 at the age of 15, but injuries derailed her career. At age seven, Phelps was still "a little scared" to put his head underwater, so his instructors allowed him to float around on his back. Not surprisingly, the first stroke he mastered was the backstroke. After he saw swimmers Tom Malchow and Tom Dolan compete at the 1996 Summer Games in Atlanta, Michael started to dream of becoming a champion himself. He launched his swimming career at 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. The coach immediately recognized Michael's talents and fierce sense of competition and began an intense training regime together. By 1999, Phelps had made the U.S. National B Team. At the age of 15, Phelps became the youngest American male swimmer at an Olympic Games in 68 years. While he didn't win a medal at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia, he would soon become a major force in competitive swimming. During the spring of 2001, Phelps set the world record in the 200-meter butterfly, becoming the youngest male swimmer in history (at 15 years and 9 months) to ever set a swimming world record. He then broke his own record during the 2001 World Championships in Fukuoka, Japan, with a time of 1:54:58, earning his first international medal. Phelps continued to set new marks at the 2002 U.S. Summer Nationals in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, establishing a new world record for the 400-meter individual medley and U.S. records in the 100-meter butterfly and the 200-meter individual medley. The following year at the same event, he broke his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley with a time of 4:09.09. Shortly after graduating from Towson in 2003, the 17-year-old Phelps set five world records, including the 200-meter individual medley at the World Championships in Barcelona, Spain, with a time of 1:56:04. Then during the U.S. trials for the 2004 Summer Olympics, he broke his own world again in the 400 meter individual medley when he was clocked at 4:08:41. Phelps became a superstar at the 2004 Olympic Games in Athens, Greece, winning eight medals (including six gold), which tied with Soviet gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin (1980) for the most medals in a single Olympic Games. Phelps scored the first of six gold medals on August 14 when he broke his own world record in the 400-meter individual medley, shaving 0.15 seconds of his previous mark. He also won gold in the 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly, 200-meter individual medley, 4x200-meter freestyle relay and 4x100-meter medley relay). The two events in Athens, in which Phelps took bronze medals, were 200-meter freestyle and the 4x100-meter freestyle relay.