The Olympics are a special event in the life of every athlete, and the Olympic award represents the highest recognition of sporting achievements for him. At the same time, only a few managed to win several Olympic medals.
World record for medals
The absolute world record for the number of Olympic medals was set quite recently - in 2012, during the Olympic Games in London, the capital of Great Britain. This was done by the 27-year-old American athlete Michael Phelps, who competed in the swimming category.
To become the absolute record holder for this indicator, Michael was allowed to participate in four Olympics. They first took part in the Olympic Games in 2000: then they were held in Sydney, and Michael himself was then only 15 years old, which made him one of the youngest swimmers on the American team over the past almost 70 years. However, this Olympics turned out for the young athlete to be more of a training on the way to future awards: in Sydney he did not receive a single medal, since the best result he managed to achieve was the fifth position in the butterfly swimming competition at the 200-meter distance.
For the second time, Phelps attempted to win the Olympic award in 2004 during the Olympics held in Athens. By this time, he had already become a more serious athlete, which was not slow to affect his results: during these games he received 6 gold and 2 bronze medals. However, a real triumph for him was the Beijing Olympics, which took place in 2008: then he won 8 medals of the highest standard, having received them in all disciplines in which he took part.
In 2012, he received a total of 6 awards, of which 4 were gold and 2 were silver. Thus, the total number of medals received by Michael Phelps during the milestones of the Olympics in which he took part was 22, which became an absolute world record. Another record set by Phelps is that 18 of these medals are gold: no one has ever achieved this figure before. After that, the swimmer announced the end of his Olympic career.
Previous record
As a result of his brilliant performances, Michael Phelps also managed to break the previous world record for the total number of Olympic awards, which no one has been able to do for 48 years. It belonged to the Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina, who won 18 awards of various denominations, taking part in three Olympic Games in 1956, 1960 and 1964. At the same time, Larisa Latynina became the Olympic champion nine times; of the remaining number of medals, five were silver and four were bronze.
