Olympic and Pralympic games London 2012 - By Sarah Green

full name: Michael Fred Phelps II

Nickname: The Baltimore Bullet, The Baltimore shark

Nationality: American

Michael Fred Phelps II (Baltimore, Maryland, June 30, 1985) is a retired American swimmer in his last event in the 2012 London Olympics. He has won a total of 22 Olympic medals in his career, more than any Olympic athlete who has achieved so far. Until August 4, 2012, Phelps broke 37 world records in swimming. It is considered the best swimmer of all time. Overall, Phelps has won 22 Olympic medals: six gold and two bronze medals in the 2004 Athens Olympics, eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, and 4 gold medals and 2 silver in London 2012. On July 31, 2012 Phelps surpassed in number of medals won gymnast Larissa Latynina to, who scored a total of 18 in his career, nine of them gold.

In May 2012, announced his retirement from high performance competitions, effective at the end of their participation in the 2012 London Olympics. Their main reasons are tiredness and fatigue from years of training.

Thanks to its international titles, and their records broken, Phelps has been awarded the World Swimmer of the Year Award (award for swimmer of the year), in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, and 2009.

Full name: Natalia Partyka

Nationality: Poland

Highest ranking: 48 (May 2010)

Height: 1.73 m

Natalia Partyka (born 27 July 1989) is a Polish table tennis player. Born without a right hand and forearm, she participates in competitions for able-bodied athletes^] as well as in competitions for athletes with disabilities. Partyka reached the last 32 of the London 2012 Olympic women's table tennis.

Table tennis career

Partyka began playing table tennis at the age of seven. She won her first international table tennis medal in 1999 at the disabled World Championships. At the age of 11, she competed at the 2000 Summer Paralympics in Sydney, becoming the world's youngest ever Paralympian. In 2004, she won a gold medal in the singles event and silver in the team event at the Athens Paralympics. Also in 2004, she won two gold medals at the International Table Tennis Federation's European Championships for Cadets, which was open to able-bodied competitors. In 2006, Partyka won three gold medals at the European Paralympic Championships, one gold and two silvers at the International Paralympic Committee's Table Tennis World Championships for Disabled, and a silver in the team event at the ITTF European Junior Championship. She won two silver medals and one bronze at the 2007 edition of the latter competition. Also in 2007, Partyka won three gold medals at the European Paralympic Championships, and a bronze at the ITTF World Junior Teams Championships.^[

Olympics and Paralympics performance

Partyka competed for Poland both the 2008 Summer Olympics and the 2008 Summer Paralympics in Beijing - one of only two athletes to do so, the other being Natalie du Toit in swimming They were her third Paralympic Games, and her first Olympics. Competing in class 10 at the Beijing Paralympics, she won gold by defeating China's Fan Lei by three sets to nil.^[

In 2008, she won a gold medal in the singles event and a silver in the team event at the Beijing Paralympics - she repeated her Athens Paralympics result.

She competed at the 2012 Summer Olympics and 2012 Summer Paralympics in London. In the Olympics, she competed in women's singles table tennis On 3 September 2012 Natalia defeated China's Qiang Yang 3-2 in the Gold Medal match to become Paralympic Champion. On 8 September 2012 she won bronze in the women's Team Table Tennis Class 6-10, after defeating France 3-2.