Michael Phelps participates in a press conference during the 2016 Team USA Media Summit at UCLA's Pauley Pavilion on March 8, 2016 in Westwood, Calif. 
 
 
 
 
 
 RIO DE JANEIRO – Michael Phelps, the most decorated Olympian of all time, was selected as Team USA’s flag bearer for the Opening Ceremony of the 2016 Olympic Games, the United States Olympic Committee announced today. The Opening Ceremony will be held Aug. 5 at the Maracanã Stadium in Rio de Janeiro. Phelps, who is the first American male swimmer to qualify for a fifth Olympic Games, was chosen by a vote of fellow Team USA members. 
 
 Phelps made history at the Beijing Games in 2008 when he won gold medals in eight events and added to his legacy in 2012 when he became the most decorated Olympian of all time with 22 career medals, including 18 golds. Set to compete in three individual events in Rio, Phelps, will look to add to his historic Olympic medal haul in 2016. 
 
 “I'm honored to be chosen, proud to represent the U.S., and humbled by the significance of carrying the flag and all it stands for,” Phelps said. “For Sydney, I just wanted to make the team. For Athens, I wanted to win gold for my country. For Beijing, I wanted to do something nobody else had done. In London, I wanted to make history. And now, I want to walk in the Opening Ceremony, take it all in, represent America in the best possible way and make my family proud. This time around, it's about so much more than medals.” 
 
 Making his Olympic debut at the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Phelps became the youngest male Olympian since 1932, and his eight gold medals from the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games is an Olympic record. 
 
 Phelps is only the second swimmer to lead the U.S. delegation into the Opening Ceremony and the fifth swimmer to serve as flag bearer for Team USA at the Olympic Games. Four-time Olympic medalist Gary Hall previously carried the flag into the Opening Ceremony of the 1976 Olympic Games in Montréal. 
 
 The 2016 Olympic Games will take place from Aug. 5-21 in Rio de Janeiro, marking the first Olympic Games to be held in South America. 
 
 For more information and photos of Team USA at the 2016 Olympic Games, visit TeamUSA.org/Rio2016 and follow Team USA on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. 
 
 U.S Olympic Team Flag Bearers – Opening Ceremony 
 
 1908 Ralph Rose, Track and Field 
 
 1912 George Bonhag, Track and Field 
 
 1920 Patrick McDonald, Track and Field 
 
 1924 Patrick McDonald, Track and Field 
 
 1928 Lemuel (Bud) Houser, Track and Field 
 
 1932 F. Morgan Taylor, Track and Field 
 
 1936 Alfred Jochim, Gymnastics 
 
 1948 Ralph Craig, Yachting 
 
 1952 Norman Armitage, Fencing 
 
 1956 Norman Armitage, Fencing 
 
 Warren Wooford, Equestrian* 
 
 1960 Rafer Johnson, Track and Field 
 
 1964 William Parry O’Brien, Track and Field 
 
 1968 Janice Lee Romary, Fencing 
 
 1972 Olga Fikotova Connolly, Track and Field 
 
 1976 Gary Hall, Swimming 
 
 1980 U.S. did not attend 
 
 1984 Edward Burke, Track and Field 
 
 1988 Evelyn Ashford, Track and Field 
 
 1992 Francie Larrieu Smith, Track and Field 
 
 1996 Bruce Baumgartner, Wrestling 
 
 2000 Cliff Meidl, Canoe/Kayak 
 
 2004 Dawn Staley, Basketball 
 
 2008 Lopez Lomong, Track and Field 
 
 2012 Mariel Zagunis, Fencing 
 
 2016 Michael Phelps, Swimming 
 
 
 
 *Due to Australia’s immigration laws for horses, the 1956 equestrian events were held in Stockholm, Sweden. ||||| Matt Slocum / AP U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps poses with his gold medal for the men's 4 x 200-m final at the Aquatics Centre during the Olympics in London on July 31, 2012 
 
 Can you really smile while you’re swimming? Most of us, I’d imagine, would fill our ducts with rivers of chlorine. But Michael Phelps, who has gills for something, has no problem grinning in the pool. With about 20 m left in the 4 x 200-m freestyle relay in London on Tuesday night, Phelps knew he had it: he was about to win a gold medal, the 19th Olympic medal of his career, breaking the record held by former Soviet Union gymnast Larisa Latynina. “I started smiling,” Phelps says. “I don’t think I’ve ever done that in a race before.” 
 
 He had good reason. After Beijing, what more could Phelps accomplish in the pool? Phelps was never going to win eight gold medals in London; after he spent part of the past four years, by his own admission, slacking off, it was clear he had no great desire to repeat Beijing. “In the pool, we’ve done the work,” says Phelps. “And sometimes not done the work.” But he still didn’t own one honorific, that of the most decorated Olympian of all time. He needed three more pieces of hardware. 
 
 Few people, over the past four years, talked much about this final milestone. Phelps’ own family was in the dark. Until this year, says Phelps’ sister Hilary, “we didn’t even know about the record. It didn’t register on our radar that he was three away from being the greatest Olympian of all time.” So there’s no doubt he’s the best now, right? Hillary shrugs, which says it all. “He’s the greatest ever, you know,” she says. 
 
 (MORE: U.S. Women Gymnasts Win First Team Gold Since 1996) 
 
 The record clearly motivated Phelps to return to the Olympics in top form. “Being able to do something that’s never been done before, that’s what I’ve always wanted to do,” Phelps says. “There was nothing that was going to stand in my way of being the first Michael Phelps.” After finishing in fourth place in the 400-m individual medley on Saturday and winning silver in the 4 x 100-m relay, Phelps eased his attitude coming into the historic night. “I guess the last couple of days have been a lot more relaxed,” Phelps says. “From the very first day, I was super tight, I was trying to be all superserious. And just the last couple of days, I’ve just been laughing all the time, joking, having fun.” 
 
 For Phelps, the night didn’t get off to a joyous start. In the 2008 100-m butterfly race, Phelps memorably caught Serbian Milorad Cavic at the last possible moment, beating him by one-hundredths of a second. In London, Phelps got caught at the end: after leading for most of the race, Phelps, Takeshi Matsuda of Japan and Chad Le Clos of South Africa splashed furiously toward the finish, bunched together in three lanes, like cars in one of those scoreboard races at a baseball game. Who would touch first? It was anyone’s guess. 
 
 The winner: Le Clos, over Phelps by five-hundredths of a second. The South African had clipped his idol. “Phelps is my hero, and I love the guy,” Le Clos says. He knew the history, having watched Phelps catch Cavic in Beijing countless times on his laptop. “I’ve got it in like seven different languages,” Le Clos says of that race. “I’ve watched his races millions of times. I guess I can watch now my race.” Le Clos gained momentum on the final turn. “It sounds crazy, but I actually thought I was Michael at that last turn,” Le Clos says. “I just remembered how he used to do it. When I turned that way, I looked at him. It was a trigger point, that I could do something special.” 
 
 The loss fired Phelps up. “I sure as hell wasn’t happy,” Phelps says. But he was also drained from the race and had to swim the relay in less than an hour. “I told those guys I wanted a big lead,” says Phelps. “I wanted a biiiiiiig lead going into this last leg.” He got it: Ryan Lochte, Conor Dwyer, and Ricky Berens gave Phelps a cushion, and Phelps swam his 200-m in 1:44:05 — the fastest among his teammates. Afterward, the joyous Americans huddled together. “I thanked them for allowing me to have this moment,” says Phelps. 
 
 Phelps’ family and dozens of friends were on hand to see it. As most fans filed out of the Aquatics Centre, rows of Phelps fans stayed behind to snap some final photos as he conducted television interviews. Phelps’ mother Debbie signed autographs and took pictures with children. “Wow, wow,” she says. “I mean, wow, wow.” After her son crossed the finish, Debbie was overcome with emotion. “It was just the joy on Michael’s face,” Debbie says, before choking up again. “That was so … magical to me. Because he had goals to reach, and he wasn’t done yet.” 
 
 MORE: Doping Suspicions About Gold-Medal Swimmer Trigger Angry Response in China ||||| This summer, Michael Phelps is swimming for his last time at the Olympics and collecting a few more gold medals along the way. Outside of his extensive hardware collection, Phelps has helped Under Armour and agency Droga5 hit some major milestones with his "Rule Yourself" ad, including a Film Craft Grand Prix at the Cannes Lions festival. Now it's become one of the most shared Olympics spots ever. 
 
 New data from Unruly shows the Phelps Under Armour spot is now the second most shared Olympics ad for 2016—behind Channel 4's incredible Paralympics spot "We're The Superhumans,"—and the fifth most shared Olympics spot of all time. 
 
 What makes the ad, created by Droga5, so sharable? 
 
 For one, it's striking the right emotional chord with its target audience: millennial men between the ages of 18 and 34. The dramatic nature of the Phelps spot (with a killer track from The Kills) and its ability to take viewers through the swimmer's intense training process elicited a sense of inspiration among 47 percent of overall viewers, and 68 percent of millennial men. 
 
 Twenty-two percent of viewers reported feeling amazement watching the athlete training and even undergoing some extraordinarily painful-looking sessions of cupping therapy. Millennials also felt happiness and surprise—all key emotions needed to engage younger viewers, according to Unruly. 
 
 "Something we've learned from all of the ads we tested if we look at different demographics and the emotions that are most resonant to them, for millennials—especially male millennials—inspiration is one of the top emotions. If that is present at all in an ad, they tend to experience it," Devra Prywes, VP, marketing and insight at Unruly, said. Prywes noted that the inspiration factor seemed to be lacking in a lot of Super Bowl spots from this year but stands out in many Olympics spots, which is likely helping to propel shares for the Olympic ads. 
 
 To date, 56 percent of the spots' shares are coming from Facebook, followed by Twitter at 28 percent. 
 
 Prywes contended that Under Armour has successfully been able to consistently create authentic spots, with stars from Misty Copeland to the U.S. Women's Gymnastics team. Each piece of work continues to inspire and amaze audiences while also building a sense of pride in viewers, according to the data. 
 
 Droga5 co-head of strategy Harry Roman echoed Prywes, adding that the Phelps ad is so shareable because it's able to convey the sacrifice that the swimmer makes each day to prepare for Rio. 
 
 "I think people connect with this film because it paints hard work and sacrifice with beautiful strokes, but does so in a way that is raw and real about what it takes to win. I would like to think that this film and the stirring lyrics, 'It's The Last Goodbye,' are playing in the back of people's minds when they see him smiling on the podium. We probably won't ever see another athlete like Michael Phelps for a very long time," Roman said. 
 
 Added Prywes: "Especially with younger viewers, over three-quarters will lose trust in a brand if an ad feels fake. Under Armour's recent campaigns are all consistently authentic. They're doing a really nice job of drawing this out and creating new content that all work really well together in their content stack, in this authentic way of portraying athletes and their origin stories, showing the things that you don't always see." 
 
 Take a look at some additional data from Unruly below.
– "King of the Olympic Rings" Michael Phelps already has more medals than any other athlete in history, Fox Sports notes. Now he's going to add a flag to the mix as Team USA's flag-bearer at the opening ceremony in Rio on Friday, the Olympic National Committee announced Wednesday. The swimmer, headed to his fifth Olympics, has 22 medals to his name, including 18 golds. "I'm honored to be chosen, proud to represent the US, and humbled by the significance of carrying the flag and all it stands for," he says in a Team USA release. "For Sydney, I just wanted to make the team. For Athens, I wanted to win gold for my country. For Beijing, I wanted to do something nobody else had done. In London, I wanted to make history. And now, I want to walk in the Opening Ceremony, take it all in, represent America in the best possible way, and make my family proud. This time around, it's about so much more than medals." In more fashionable opening ceremony news, per the Los Angeles Times: Polo Ralph Lauren and the US Olympic Committee revealed Team USA's parade attire Friday, with team members set to be adorned in white denim pants, navy blue blazers, and red-white-and-blue striped T-shirts. But it's Phelps' outfit that will stand out the most: His jacket will be fitted with a battery pack that powers light-up panels to make his Olympic patch on the front and "USA" letters on the back glow. (Phelps' most recent accomplishment: his first child.)