Michael Phelps

Age: 31 (June 30, 1985)

Ties to Maryland: Born in Baltimore. Graduated from Towson High School in 2003. Trained at the North Baltimore Aquatic Center before moving to Arizona to train with longtime coach Bob Bowman. Won The Baltimore Sun’s High School Athlete of the Year award in 2001.

Career highlights: Phelps is the most decorated Olympian of all time, having won 22 career medals (18 gold) across four previous Olympics. He won two bronze and six gold medals at the 2004 Athens Games, eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games and two silver and four gold at the 2012 London Games. … Phelps, whose best stroke is the butterfly, has won three straight medals in six different events — 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter individual medley, 4x100-meter medley relay, 4x200-meter freestyle relay, 200-meter butterfly and 4x100-meter freestyle relay — including three straight gold medals in the first four. If he wins a fourth straight gold in any of them, he’ll be the first swimmer ever to do so. … He’s set to swim the 100-meter butterfly, 200-meter butterfly, 200-meter individual medley and perhaps a relay at the Rio Olympics.

Did you know? At his first Olympics, at age 15, Phelps was the youngest male Olympian since 1932. At his last, this year, he will be the first American male swimmer to swim in five Olympics. … His eight gold medals in 2008 earned him Sports Illustrated Sportsman of the Year honors. … He and his fiancee, Nicole Johnson, had their first child, Boomer, in May.