The Olympic Games are the special event in life of each athlete, and the Olympic award represents for it the highest recognition of sports merits. At the same time the little managed to win several Olympic medals only.
World record on medals
The absolute world record by quantity of the Olympic medals was set quite recently - in 2012, duringduring the Olympic Games in London, the capital of Great Britain. The 27-year-old American athlete Michael Phelps who acted in category "swimming" managed to make it.
Participation in four Olympic Games allowed to become the absolute record holder on this indicator to Michael. For the first time they participated in the Olympic Games in 2000: then they passed in Sydney, and Michael then was only 15 years old that made him one of the youngest swimmers as a part of American team for the last nearly 70 years. However these Olympic Games were for the young athlete rather the training on the way to future awards: in Sydney he didn't get any medal as the fifth position in swimming competitions butterfly stroke at the 200-meter distance became the best result which he managed to achieve.
For the second time Phelps made the attempt to win the Olympic award in 2004 during the Olympic Games which were taking place in Athens. By this time he already became more serious athlete that wasn't slow to affect his results: during these games he received 6 gold and 2 bronze medals. However the Olympic Games in Beijing which took place in 2008 became the true triumph for it: then it won 8 medals of the highest test, having received them in all disciplines in which took part. In 2012 it got in total 6 awards from which 4 were gold, and 2 - silver. Thus, the total number of the medals got by Michael Phelps during milestones of the Olympic Games in which he took part made 22 awards that became the absolute world record. One more record set by Phelps is that 18 of these medals - gold: to it nobody managed to reach this indicator. After that the swimmer declared end of the Olympic career.
Previous record
As a result of the brilliant performances Michael Phelps managed to break also the previous world record on total number of the Olympic awards anybody managed that for 48 years. It belonged to the Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina who won 18 awards of various advantage, having participated in three Olympic Games in 1956, 1960 and 1964. At the same time the Olympic champion Larisa Latynina became nine times; from the remained quantity of medals five represented silver awards, and four - bronze.