The big, goofy gold medal-winning machine that is Michael Phelps swam his last ever Olympic race in the men’s 4×100 medley relay in Rio today, and he went ahead and picked up another gold medal for his trouble.
The 31-year-old Phelps capped off a legendary career in the pool by picking up his 23rd gold medal; to put that in perspective, he and the country of Brazil are now equally tied in terms of Summer Olympic bling.
“You just have no idea how difficult it is for anybody to win an Olympic gold medal,” said the swimmer’s long-time coach Bob Bowman. “I know Michael’s done it so frequently; it’s really hard to put it in perspective.”
The team of Ryan Murphy, Cody Miller, Nathan Adrian and Phelps also manged to set a record time of 3:27.95 with their swim.
Phelps, who has swum 63 races in his Olympic career, originally announced his retirement following the London 2012 games, but resumed training again in 2013, in preparation for Rio.
He has been hinting for a while now that this time, his retirement will be permanent, and he confirmed as much in a recent Facebook video, saying “I’m done, I’m finished” and confirming that he will not race again in 2020.
Michael Phelps on retirement and Rio being his last Olympic Games #ATTNats pic.twitter.com/hoWkZwFeKm
— USA Swimming (@USASwimming) December 2, 2015
So long, Michael Phelps. It will be a long, long time before anyone even comes close to toppling your Olympic record.
Source: NY Times.
Photo: Jean Catuffe / Getty.
