Michael Phelps elected for the International Swimming Hall of Fame

The American Michael Phelps, winner of 23 gold medals at the Olympic Games, will enter the International Swimming Hall of Fame in September, which will feature for the first time a Paralympic athlete, also American Trischa Zorn-Hudson.

In addition to Phelps and Zorn-Hudson, the other swimmers chosen to enter the Hall of Fame in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, are the American Missy Franklin, the Zimbabwean Kirsty Coventry, the Japanese Kosuke Kitajima and the Brazilian Cesar Cielo.

The 2023 class will be completed by China’s Wu Minxia (diving), Russia’s Natalia Ischenko (artistic swimming), American Heather Petri (water polo), Frenchman Stèphane Lecat (open water), Americans Bob Bowman and Chris Carver (coaches) and South African Sam Ramsamy (member of the IOC).

Phelps is one of the great legends of swimming and last year he was also inducted into the Hall of Fame of the United States Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Baltimore Shark participated in five Games, the first was when he was 15 years old in Sydney 2000 and retired after Rio 2016.

The American is the top winner of Olympic medals with a total of 28, of which 23 were gold; in addition, at the 2008 Beijing Games he set the record for obtaining eight events (five were individual and three with the United States relays).

If Phelps made history in Olympic swimming, Trischa Zorn-Hudson marked an era in Paralympic swimming by winning 55 medals (41 gold) between the Arnhem 1980 Games and Athens 2004.

The election of Zorn-Hudson, 58, is historic because for the first time a Paralympic athlete will be part of the International Swimming Hall of Fame. Like the swimmer from Baltimore, the one born in Orange, California, entered her country’s Olympic and Paralympic Hall of Fame in 2022.

From September, the International Swimming Hall of Fame will also have César Cielo, winner of the only Olympic medal for Brazil when he won the 50 freestyle in Beijing 2008 and owner of the world record for this distance. The Paulista player will join his compatriots Maria Lenk (joined in 1988) and Gustavo Borges (2012).

The American Missy Franklin, a freestyle and back specialist, won four gold medals in London 2012 and a year later she won six golds at the Barcelona World Cup; also in the backstroke, Kirsty Coventry, the only Olympic medalist from Zimbabwe in an individual event, and the Japanese Kosuke Kitajima, considered one of the best in history in this specialty, stood out.

The diver Wu Minxia participated in four Olympic Games (Athens, Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro) and won at least one gold medal in all of them, while the Russian Natalia Ischenko retired perfectly: she won the five times she participated in artistic swimming, twice as a duo (London and Rio de Janeiro) and three times in teams (Beijing, London and Rio de Janeiro).

One gold medal (London 2012) and four in total was won by Heather Petri, a member of the American water polo team; the Frenchman Stèphane Lecat was bronze at the Fukuoka Open Water World Cup and Bob Bowman, the coach of Michael Phelps, will also follow that of Baltimore in the Hall of Fame.

The condition for being elected to the International Swimming Hall of Fame is to be retired for four years, although athletes over 30 years old who have not officially announced it can also participate.