59 free Michael Phelps trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Michael Phelps swam in five Olympic Games and left with 28 medals, 23 of them gold - more than any athlete in any sport, and more than most countries. This Michael Phelps trivia quiz starts where everyone starts: how many medals, which city he grew up in, who his coach was, and what happened in Beijing in 2008. Then it goes lap by lap through the details that made those Games legendary - the relay anchor that ran down the French, the butterfly final won by a hundredth of a second, the goggles that filled with water, and the record that had stood since Mark Spitz in 1972. The harder questions cover the rest of a twenty-year career: the 15-year-old at Sydney 2000, the teenager who set a world record before he could drive, the polyurethane-suit loss in Rome, the retirement, the comeback, the #PhelpsFace meme in Rio, the ancient Greek whose record he broke, and the last relay that gave the United States its 1,001st summer gold. There is also a stretch on the man himself: ADHD, the sponsors, the foundation, the wife he married in secret, the 159-foot putt and the football club he part-owns. Every answer was checked against encyclopaedia entries on Phelps, his coach and his rivals, and the sentence that supports each answer is saved with the question. If you enjoy this one, try our Olympics and swimming trivia quizzes next.
30 of 59 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01How many Olympic medals did Michael Phelps win in total?
28
He won them across four Games, from Athens 2004 to Rio 2016; he left Sydney 2000 empty-handed.
Q 02How many of Phelps's Olympic medals were gold?
23
Thirteen of them came in individual events, also an all-time record.
Q 03How many gold medals did Phelps win at the 2008 Beijing Olympics?
8
It beat a single-Games record that had stood since 1972.
Q 04In which city was Phelps born?
Baltimore
He grew up in the Rodgers Forge neighbourhood of nearby Towson, and a street in the city was renamed The Michael Phelps Way in 2004.
Q 05In which year was Phelps born?
1985
He is the youngest of three children; his mother was a middle-school principal and his father a state trooper.
Q 06Which coach trained Phelps from the age of 11 through his entire career?
Bob Bowman
Phelps said the man reminded him of a drill sergeant, and vowed never to swim for anyone else.
Q 07Phelps was diagnosed with which condition when he was in the sixth grade?
ADHD
He was bullied over it and his protruding ears, and later said the frustration fuelled his swimming.
Q 08At what age did Phelps start swimming?
7
He has said the only reason he got in the water was that his mother wanted him to learn to swim.
Q 09How old was Phelps when he made the U.S. team for the Sydney 2000 Olympics?
15
He was the youngest male on a U.S. Olympic swim team in 68 years.
Q 10Where did Phelps finish in his only final at Sydney 2000?
5th
Sixteen years later he became the first swimmer to reach five Olympic finals in the same event.
Q 11In March 2001 Phelps became the youngest male ever to set a swimming world record, at what age?
15 years 9 months
He took the 200-metre butterfly mark, beating a record for precocity previously held by an Australian.
Q 12Phelps won his first world title in 2001 in which Japanese city?
Fukuoka
He lowered his own world record in the final.
Q 13In which event did Phelps win his first Olympic gold medal, at Athens in 2004?
400-meter individual medley
He did it in a world-record 4:08.26, then went on to six golds and two bronzes at those Games.
Q 21The Beijing 4x200 freestyle relay that Phelps led off was the first team to break which barrier?
Seven minutes
They beat the old record by more than four and a half seconds.
Q 22Which Serbian swimmer did Phelps beat by a hundredth of a second in the Beijing 100-metre butterfly?
Milorad Čavić
He had said it would be 'good' if Phelps lost the eighth gold to 'some guy'; Serbia protested and FINA studied frames shot 1/10,000th of a second apart.
Q 23In how many of his eight Beijing events did Phelps set a world record?
7
The 100 fly was 'only' an Olympic record, leaving a teammate's world mark intact.
Q 14At Athens 2004 Phelps tied the record of eight medals at one Games, held by which Soviet gymnast?
Alexander Dityatin
The gymnast had done it at Moscow 1980.
Q 15Where did Phelps finish in the 200-metre freestyle 'Race of the Century' at Athens 2004?
Third
He said he could not be disappointed after racing the two fastest freestylers of all time.
Q 16At Athens, Phelps gave up his medley relay final spot so which teammate could swim for gold?
Ian Crocker
Phelps had beaten him by 0.04 seconds in the 100 fly a day earlier and still got a gold for swimming the heats.
Q 17How many gold medals did Phelps win at the 2007 World Championships in Melbourne?
7
A false start in the medley relay heats got the U.S. disqualified and cost him a shot at an eighth.
Q 18Which American swimmer's record of seven golds at a single Olympics did Phelps break in Beijing?
Mark Spitz
The record had stood since Munich 1972.
Q 19Which US swimmer anchored the Beijing 4x100 freestyle relay, running down Alain Bernard by 0.08 seconds?
Jason Lezak
Bernard had talked of 'smashing the Americans', which Phelps said fired him up more than anything.
Q 20What went wrong for Phelps during his 200-metre butterfly gold in Beijing?
His goggles filled with water
He said he could not see anything for the last 100 metres and still set a world record.
Q 24Which South Korean took silver behind Phelps's world-record 200-metre freestyle in Beijing?
Park Tae-hwan
That win put Phelps among only five modern Olympians with nine career golds.
Q 25Which anti-doping programme did Phelps cite when asked in Beijing if his feats were 'too good to be true'?
Project Believe
He passed all nine tests administered to him during the Games.
Q 26Which German swimmer in a polyurethane suit ended Phelps's unbeaten run in the 200 free at the 2009 Worlds?
Paul Biedermann
Phelps's coach threatened to pull him from international meets until the suits were banned.
Q 27At the 2009 Worlds Phelps became the first man to swim the 100-metre butterfly under what time?
50 seconds
He went 49.82 and beat his Beijing rival by 0.13 seconds.
Q 28Which sponsor dropped Phelps after a photo of him using a bong went viral in 2009?
Kellogg's
USA Swimming also suspended him for three months; he apologised for 'inappropriate' behaviour.
Q 29Where did Phelps finish in his first final at London 2012, his first non-medal since 2000?
4th
He had qualified last for the final and was beaten by Ryan Lochte, Thiago Pereira and Kosuke Hagino.
Q 30Which South African beat Phelps by five hundredths of a second in the 200-metre butterfly at London 2012?
Chad le Clos
He had named Phelps as his sporting hero before the Games.