Staying Gold: Michael Phelps Has Lived a Lifetime in the Olympics

When Michael Phelps was first delivered into our world, he was just the baby at the Sydney Olympics in 2000—too young to do much yet, but when he grows up, look out. In 2004 in Athens, he was the young gun, the best—but still no Mark Spitz. In 2008 in Beijing, he was God in the pool.

And by 2012 in London, it was the farewell for grandpa Phelps' career.

So what exactly does that make him now? Phelps won his second and third gold medals of the Rio Olympics on Tuesday night in the 200-meter butterfly and then the 800-meter freestyle relay. He is dominating another Olympics, possibly headed for six golds.

The thing is, Phelps is playing out an entire career in the Olympics. You just don't see this. Instead, you usually see someone too young in one Games followed by dominant in the next. And that's it. Or maybe dominant in one followed by a drop-off in the next, such as Gabby Douglas or Missy Franklin.

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Each Olympics tends to serve as another generation in sports. That makes Phelps a great-grandpa at 31. And while he plans to retire after these Games, there is no reason he couldn't come back and win some more in 2020.

He'd be great-great-grandpa Michael.

You hear different statistics about how long a typical successful NFL career lasts, and that usually is around four or five years. Phelps is dominating his fifth Olympics.

These Olympics will be about the super weirdly intense looks on his face, the red cupping marks all over his body. One swimmer called him "extraterrestrial," per Paul Newberry of the Associated Press, and one called him a fairy tale. He took down another rival, Chad le Clos of South Africa, who had beaten him in 2012.

Le Clos shadowboxed in front of Phelps in the pre-race waiting area in the semifinals, and he stared down Phelps before the final Tuesday. Phelps ignored him. He has swatted away so many villains in his career—made them look as silly as Batman made the Joker look.

Sure, Phelps is great. But how great? The debate will start now about whether he's the greatest Olympian of all time. It's a fair question, and he might be. But the minute Usain Bolt wins yet another 100-meter dash on Sunday, we'll be having the same debate about him.

Phelps, with 21 golds and counting, certainly has more hardware than Bolt. But there are so many more events for him to compete in. And the 100 meters is the signature event of the Summer Olympics.

Edge to Bolt if he wins again.

But that shouldn't make any difference to Phelps. He's the best swimmer ever, and there doesn't seem to be a downward arc to his career.

These Games will have special meaning to him, of course. He has gone through all the stages that drag down, or threaten to drag down, sports superheroes. He got bored. He burned out. He lost his focus and his purpose.

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He turned to alcohol and had the darkest thoughts. It is nearly impossible to keep one singular thought in your head for so many years. In tennis, Serena Williams used to be criticized for her lack of constant focus. It's clear now that distractions are what have kept her around so long.

Different things work for different people. But Phelps has come out the other side of his darkness. He has a baby now, is about to get married and is sober. He kept grabbing gold medals when he went down.

And it might or might not have been weakness that led him to drunkenness and DUIs, but however you look at it, he put in hard work and had the courage to get through it all.

Consider this: In Omaha, Nebraska, at the United States Olympic trials, Phelps said he had been bluffing, pretending to fight hard in 2012. He said he was back to being happy in 2016, but he was unsure what that would translate to at the trials or in Rio.

He also acknowledged there was no way for us to know whether he was just bluffing again. But it looks as if he wasn't.

He did well in Omaha but not well enough to be a favorite for the 400-meter relay team. His coach, Bob Bowman, told Newberry that even a week before the Games Phelps was not going fast enough to merit a spot on the squad. For whatever reason, he was placed on the team. And what did he do?

In that race, he swam his fastest split in an Olympics in his career.

There is something about the great, great ones that makes them come through in the biggest moments. We saw it Tuesday night with Katie Ledecky, too, who was pushed to win gold in the 200-meter freestyle, her "worst" event—if you can say that about anything she does.

She told NBC she was inspired by the competition, and she had come as close to throwing up in the pool as she ever has.

Ledecky and Simone Biles are the most dominant athletes in sports, but Phelps is now overshadowing them. People are calling Ledecky the next Phelps, and maybe she will be. But she has three gold medals, and he has 21. If she's going to be equal to him, she'll have to go through the ups and downs of generation after generation. Her fifth Olympics will be in 2028.

By then she might be chasing great-great-grandpa Michael.

Greg Couch covers the Olympics for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter @gregcouch.