Michael Phelps

American swimmer Michael Phelps has won 13 gold medals in the Olympics, more than anyone. He has a career total of 15 medals: he won 8 at the 2004 Olympics (6 gold and 2 bronze), and at the 2008 Olympics he won seven gold medals in his first seven events. A world record holder in several events, including the 200 meter Butterfly and the 400 meter Individual Medley, Phelps was one of the biggest stories of the 2004 Athens Olympics for his record-tying total of eight medals at one Olympic meet. Phelps was only 15 when he made the American team for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney. (He placed fifth in the 200 meter butterfly, but his appearance there made him the youngest male Olympian since 1932, when 14-year-old Japanese swimmer Kusuo Kitamura won the 1500-meter freestyle at Los Angeles.) Phelps's specialty is the shorter races, 100 to 400 meters in length. His records, world records and awards are almost too numerous to mention: he set his first world record at age 15 (the 200 meter butterfly at the 2001 U.S. Spring Nationals), was named USA Swimmer of the Year six times between 2001 and 2007, and set an unprecedented five individual world records at in one meet at the 2003 world championships in Barcelona. For the 2008 Olympics he qualified in eight events and won gold medals in his first seven, including world records in the 400 meter Individual Medley and the 200 meter Freestyle.
Extra credit: Soviet gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin also won eight medals, at the 1980 Moscow games. Phelps' six gold medals at one Olympiad fell one short of the record of seven, won by swimmer Mark Spitz at the 1972 games in Munich, but he tied the record in 2008... Phelps is 6'4" tall and reportedly has size 14 feet... He won the 2003 Sullivan Award, given to the best amateur athlete in the United States... Phelps was ineligible to swim in college, having accepted a sponsorship deal from Speedo swim wear.
Other Olympic athletes through history: swimmer Gertrude Ederle, sprinter Jesse Owens, gymnast Mary Lou Retton and pentathlete (later general) George S. Patton.