living legend: Michael Phelps of the US smiles as he holds up his award recognising him as the most decorated Olympian, during the London 2012 Olympic Games at the Aquatics Centre. — Reuters photo
LONDON: Flashing a lop-sided smile of satisfaction and relief, Michael Phelps left the Olympic arena for the final time on Saturday after finishing his competitive career with a scarcely credible 18 gold medals.
The boy from Baltimore, who had set out to redefine the boundaries of his sport, had succeeded beyond anybody’s expectations with twice as many Olympic titles as any other athlete in the modern Games.
At the age of 27 he will move on, secure in the knowledge that he could not have done any more in the sport that became his life.
“I told myself that I never wanted to swim when I was 30,” he said. “I’ve been able to do everything I wanted, I’ve been able to achieve the goals I wanted to achieve and I’ve managed to do every single thing. It’s time for other things.”
Phelps, the most accomplished all-round male swimmer ever, set his sights high from the start.
“Nothing is impossible,” he wrote in his autobiography ‘No Limits’ published after his record eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games.
“You can’t put a limit on anything. The more you dream, the farther you get. When I’m focused, there is not one single thing, person, anything that can stand in the way of my doing something.”
The magnitude of his achievement as he quit the pool and entered the history books can be measured by the list of the other Olympic multiple medallists. — Reuters