by When talking about the greatest athlete of all time some prominent names may come up, like Tom Brady, LeBron James, Michael Jordan and other popular athletes, but one athlete that some may disregard is Michael Phelps. Phelps was the most dominant swimmer of his time and has the most Olympic medals of any singular athlete.
In total he has 28 medals and of those 23 are gold medals. Also, he is one of very few athletes to have competed in five Olympics starting all the way back in 2000 when he was just 15 years old. In 2008 he was unstoppable. Phelps set an Olympic record by winning gold in all eight of the events he raced. Of those eight he set world records in seven events. He is the most decorated and accomplished Olympian of all time. It is just unreal that he was able to dominate at such a high level across more than sixteen years.
Another thing to factor when talking about the best athlete is what impact an athlete had on the sport outside of their athletic successes. For Phelps, that is a long list including increasing the influence of swimming. Every four years when the summer Olympics come around Americans will tune in to watch these swimming events because of the close and intense races. He really helped thrust the sport of swimming into the mainstream media. His growing dominance of the sport has really has helped to improve the visibility of the sport.
After his retirement, he continues to be well known in the sport. He will occasionally providing some commentary for swim meets as well as raising awareness for mental health. This is important with more prominent swimmers taking a break from the sport for mental health reasons. Overall, Phelps has bettered the sport of swimming while in the pool and while outside of it and his lasting impact on the sport will be seen for a while.
