U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps won his 13th individual Olympic gold medal Thursday night in Rio de Janeiro after placing first in the 200-meter individual medley, breaking a record that had stood for 2,168 years.
The win propelled Phelps ahead of the greatest athlete of the ancient world, Leonidas of Rhodes, who won 12 individual events over four Olympics, the New York Times reported. Leonidas was 36 when he won his last three events in 152 B.C., including two races of roughly 200 and 400 meters and a longer shield-carrying race.
"Right now I don’t know how to wrap my head around that," Phelps told the New York Times Thursday after winning his 13th medal. "I don’t know what to say. It’s been a hell of a career."
He also made history as the first swimmer to win the 200-meter individual medley in four consecutive Olympics, clinching gold earlier in the London, Beijing, and Athens games. He celebrated the record by holding up four fingers after finishing the race.
Phelps, 31, has now won 22 gold medals overall and 26 medals total. He finished the race Thursday night an entire body length ahead of his closest competitor, Kosuke Hagino of Japan, who placed second. Phelps was timed in 1 minute, 54.66 seconds, his second-best time behind his Olympic record of 1:54.23 in Beijing’s 2008 games.
Phelps plans to retire after the Rio Olympics. His final individual Olympic race is Friday evening in the 100-meter butterfly, and he will likely finish off his Olympics career Saturday, swimming butterfly in the 4 x 100 medley relay.
He told NPR in a report published Friday morning that he wanted to leave the sport "right" after a successful 12-year Olympic career that began in Athens in 2004. Phelps said he prepared for Rio "training diligently" with his longtime coach Bob Bowman rather than looking to "cut corners" as he had done in prior Olympic preseasons.