Phelps slams ‘failing’ USA Swimming

August 21, 2025

USA still topped the medal table at last year’s Olympic Games in Paris with a total of 28 metals (including 8 golds), leaving Australia out of the running with 19 (7 golds). A feat they would repeat at the recent World Championships in Singapore, bringing home 32, nine more than last year. Phelps said the team’s poor results over the past decade were proof of how disorganised the discipline had become in the US. “There have always been cracks in the system, but over the past nine years I have seen those cracks grow,” the former athlete posted on his Instagram.

“In 2016, I had the honour of being part of the American swimming team in Rio, possibly the most successful in the history of the sport, and we won 57% of the medals we had the opportunity to win. Eight years later, in Paris, the US roster secured only 44% of the medals it had the opportunity to win in the pool, the lowest percentage seen in the sport since the 1988 Olympics,” the champion continued.

Australia (40), China (18) and Canada (14) have been some of the main beneficiaries in the medal distribution in recent editions of the Games. In the long shadow of the post-Phelps era, the American giant’s faltering form in the pool has only magnified the chasm left by its departed icon. However, the aforementioned new powerhouses are not the only ones, as new powers have begun to emerge, such as the United Kingdom and France, which managed to scrape together almost twenty between them in Tokyo and Paris. Yet Phelps said that the problems go beyond the number of medals won and lost.

“I’ve asked myself what has changed in our sport, and the answer is clear,” he reflected, before concluding, “This isn’t the fault of the athletes, who continue to give their all with what they’ve been given. The blame lies with the leadership of USA Swimming. Poor leadership trickles down and can damage the organisation at every level.” Phelps, the prodigy who burst onto the scene at 15 in Sydney 2000 and went on to compete in five Olympic Games, has not become a sudden, impulsive and acute judge of his sport. The greatest of all time has effectively long been using his platform to campaign for better treatment of swimmers.

Ineed, it is far from the first time he has spoken out against what he sees as unfair practices. In December 2024, he took aim at the United States Olympic Committee, urging them to provide stronger mental health support and accusing them of failing him when he began to struggle with anxiety and depression. “I walked into the training rooms at the US Olympic Committee and received no care. Athletes must come first,” Phelps said on NBC. “Without a doubt, organisations like the USOPC have taken steps in the right direction to provide the help and care we need as athletes, but they are not doing everything they could, and that worries me.”

To reach the summit, swimmers must endure punishing training regimes and stick to strict diets to keep their weight down, often for relatively modest financial reward, at least when compared with other sports. The physical and mental toll at elite level is immense, and it shows. It is not unusual to see competitors break down in tears after their races, whether they touch the wall first or finish at the back.

Phelps has spoken candidly about his own battles with depression and moments of self-destructive thoughts, and he has never shied away from demanding that the sport’s administrators do far more to safeguard the wellbeing of its athletes. In an interview with Healthline a few years ago, he opened up about his ‘demons’ and the weight of fame he carried at an early age.

This phenomenon is hardly an exclusively American concern, though. Other swimming powerhouses, including Australia, have acknowledged deep flaws in their systems, ranging from shocking cases of abuse against female athletes to ongoing struggles with mental health. Nonetheless, returning to the American borders, where Phelps is focusing his attention, there is much work ahead, according to the 40-year-old former swimmer.

Earlier this year, incoming chief executive Chrissi Rawak resigned after only nine days in the role, following the surfacing of a previously undisclosed SafeSport complaint from her coaching days. The US Center for SafeSport itself, the body responsible for investigating such allegations, has been mired in turmoil: its own chief executive was dismissed amid scrutiny of hiring practices, which included the appointment of an investigator later charged with multiple sexual offences such as rape, sex trafficking and soliciting prostitution. Experts have long warned of a damaging code of silence within the sport, a culture where those who speak out are often suppressed, as reported by CODE Sports.

Source: Inside the Games