What is Michael Phelps’ swimming speed?

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Michael Phelps is widely accepted as the greatest swimmer of all time, as well as the swimmer with the largest number of Olympic gold medals, having won 23 of which 13 are individual. Viewed as an invincible swimmer, who was impossible to beat, what was Phelps’ actual speed? At his peak, Phelps was known to clock six miles per hour, which he achieved in 2016. However, most of Phelps’ awards have been won at lower speeds around 4.5 miles per hour, which means that he stayed consistent even when others slowed down. An average human can swim upto 2 miles per hour, and Phelps’ speed seems underwhelming in that regard. This indicates that in order to win consistently, Phelps never permitted his speed to fall. Among recent swimmers to take on Phelps’ legacy is Caleb Dressel, who during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics completed 100 metres in 49.45 seconds, which is almost a third of a second less than Phelps’ record, and also swam 15 metres at the 2017 World Championships in 4.96 seconds. This has earned him the title of the fastest swimmer till date.

Though he may not be the fastest swimmer anymore, Michael Phelps remains the greatest. At his Olympic debut in Sydney at the age of 15, he finished fifth at the 200-meter butterfly. At Athens four years later, he won six gold medals in 100 m butterfly, 200 m butterfly, 200 m medley, 400 m medley, 4x200 m freestyle and 4x100m medley. He then went on to win 8, 4 and 5 gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, 2012 London Olympics and 2016 Rio Olympics respectively.