Michael Phelps Retire Olympics

Michael Phelps Retire Olympics, With the London 2012 Summer Olympics drawing close, The Huffington Post caught up with swimmer Michael Phelps, who with 16 medals, is now just three Olympic medals away from breaking the all-time record of former Soviet gymnast Larisa Latynina. Phelps, 26, recently announced his upcoming retirement and that 2012 will be his third and final Olympiad. Leading up to the games, Phelps is playing a significant role in Visa’s Go World campaign. And, with 14 gold medals to his name already, the Baltimore native already has most of any Olympic athlete ever.

How are you feeling?

I mean I’m excited. Over the last couple years, I haven’t really been as prepared as I want to be. Being able to find the fire and passion again, and I guess finding something that excites me is something that will hopefully turn into better performance over the next couple months, and that I’ll be able to be happy at the end of my career.

You had debated not participating in London for quite some time. What ultimately made you want to swim again?

It’s hard to pinpoint one thing; I knew I always had goals and things I wanted to accomplish, but I think the biggest thing was just being able to find that passion back again. Once I found it, it was easy for me to go to work out. I wanted to go and I wanted to try and achieve my goals. I’m glad I was able to find and it was something that I could only find myself. Nobody could force me to find that.

Is there one event come London that you don’t feel especially confident going into?

I think for right now, when we go into trials, we’re going to swim the events that we feel most confident with. We’re not going to have an event that we’re second guessing or not really sure how it’s going to go. Once we swim every event there, we’re going to pretty much know.

How many events are you planning to swim in London?

I won’t be doing eight again; who knows how many? It just depends what kind of shape I’m in at that point and what I think my body can handle under those circumstances.

With the swimming events completed early, are you able to enjoy the Olympic experience?

In Beijing, I was able to watch a couple basketball games, but I had so much to do after it was hard to really do a bunch of stuff. Now, who knows; after this, I don’t really have anything that I’m preparing for. Maybe I will be able to enjoy it a little bit more, just have fun and relax.