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# Can we agree that the American swimmer and twenty-three-time Olympic champion Michael Phelps, upon receiving his thirteenth gold medal back in 2016, broke the absolute Olympic record of the ancient Greek athlete Leonidas…
- URL: https://theparnassian.com/en/mozhno-li-soglasitsia-s-tem-chto-amerikanskii-plovets-i-dvadtsatitrekhkratnyi-olimpiiskii-chempion-maikl-felps-eshche-v-2016-godu-poluchiv-svoiu-trinadtsatuiu-zolotuiu-medal-pobil-absol/
- Published: 2021-07-28T07:20:12.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-01T05:40:48.000Z
- Author: Alexandr Radayev
- Tags: Observations, People, Humour

Can we agree that the American swimmer and twenty-three-time Olympic champion Michael Phelps, upon receiving his thirteenth gold medal back in 2016, broke the absolute Olympic record of the ancient Greek athlete Leonidas of Rhodes, who over four Olympic Games (164 to 152 BC) emerged the victor twelve times, albeit in the foot race, the double foot race and the race in hoplite armour? In my view, it is unfair, firstly, to speak of a 2,168-year-old record held by Leonidas of Rhodes: the Olympiads, after all, were not suspended for a mere fifteen hundred years or so. Nor is it fair to say that Phelps surpassed him, for, to the best of my knowledge, he never competed while bearing twenty kilograms of equipment in the form of helmet, breastplate and shield, whereas Leonidas of Rhodes, for his part, was never caught using doping, even with the proviso that it was a medication for a diagnosed attention deficit disorder.