Michael Phelps' father, Fred Phelps, has been one of the top searches in light of his son's amazing record-breaking victory in London.
Fred Phelps has worked for the Maryland State Police, and divorced Michael's mother in 1993 when Michael was just nine years old. He is to have remarried since his split with Michael's mother and now lives in Baltimore.
In 2004 Fred and Michael had a brief reconciliation at the Athens Olympic Games, where Phelps won 6 gold and 2 bronze medals. However, in Beijing in 2008 he didn't travel to China to watch, preferring to catch up on his son's record breaking feats on the television.
Although he did not attend the Beijing Games in 2008, father Fred did state the following in an interview around that time, according to One India News: "I'm very proud of him and all he's done. This is not about me, it's about him."
Since that time Phelps' father has kept a low profile and prefers not to allow his relationship with his son distract the world from his son's amazing achievements.
Though his son has been racking up the medals at London 2012 across swimming events, Fred Phelps has been shunning the spotlight and attempted to keep as low a profile as possible to let his son claim all the limelight without him becoming a distraction.
Fred must have been proud once again as son Michael Phelps won again on Saturday - his 22nd Olympic medal overall, and 18th gold. The race was his farewell event to the Olympic Games, and he has now retired.It was Phelps' 18th gold medal in his career and certainly there is been no better way to say goodbye to a sport that has given him much and also received so much from him.
Phelps has a whopping 22 medals in total - 18 gold, two silver and two bronze.
Phelps possesses six world records, three individual and three team based.
The records are:
100-M Butterfly - 49.82 secs (Aug. 1, 2009)
200-M Butterfly - 1:51.51 secs (July 29, 2009)
400-M Individual Medley - 4:03.84 secs (Aug. 10, 2008)
4x100-M Freestyle Relay - 3:08.24 secs (Aug. 11, 2008)
4x200-M Freestyle Relay - 6:58.55 secs (July 31, 2009)
4x100-M Medley Relay - 3:27.28 secs (Aug. 2, 2009)
