Swimming champion, Michael Phelps has broken a 2168-year-old Olympic record of Leonidas of Rhodes, who won 12 individual titles; while Phelps has a total of 22 Olympic gold medals, but nine of these have come in relays and he has only just passed the greatest athlete of the ancient world.
Leonidas competed in four successive Olympiads in 164BC, 160BC, 156BC and 152BC and won three different foot races, and was known as a triastes, or tripler.
There were only seven triastes with Leonidas being the only one known to have achieved the honor more than once. The three events at which he triumphed were the stadion, a sprint of 200m; the diaulos, which was twice the distance of the stadion; and the longer hoplitodromos, also called race in armor.
Although, there is very little biographical information about Leonidas with no images of him surviving the time,, his name – derived from the Greek word for lion – suggests he was a man of distinction.
By: Archa Dave
