Michael Phelps ends his swimming career with more gold medals than most countries

(Image credit: Rob Carr/Getty Images)

published 14 August 2016

Olympic phenomenon Michael Phelps ended his swimming career on a high note Saturday night, winning one last Olympic gold as part of the U.S. team in the men's 4×100-meter medley relay swim.

With 23 gold medals and 28 medals overall, Phelps has far more medals than any other Olympian (the next highest tally of golds is nine). He also has more gold medals than most nations have earned collectively; placed in all-time international rankings, Phelps personally has more golds than all but 32 of the 205 countries participating at Rio.

"It turned out pretty cool,'' Phelps said after that final victory. "It's just a perfect way to finish." Phelps' coach and teammates heaped praise on the swimmer, too. "No matter what country you swim for, you're indebted to Michael Phelps for bringing a lot of exposure to the sport and making it a little more mainstream," said fellow American swimmer Ryan Murphy. "If this is the end, that was a great way to cap off an incredible career."

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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