Swimming great Michael Phelps will speak on Utilizing Sport in Increasing Prosperity at the three-day Global Competitiveness Forum (GSF) starting here Sunday. Among others who will speak at this year's Forum – organized by Saudi Arabia General Investment Authority (SAGIA) – include Mary Robinson, former Irish president; Thomas Enders, UN High Commissioner on Human Rights. According to the organizers Phelps will talk about linking the principle of competitiveness through sport to win gold. Phelps holds the record for the most gold medals won at a single Olympics with the eight golds he won at the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games. With this record, he surpassed American swimmer Mark Spitz, who won seven at the 1972 Munich Olympic Games. Phelps has won 14 career Olympic gold medals, the most by any Olympian. By the end of 2008, he held seven world records in swimming. Overall, Phelps has won 16 Olympic medals – six gold and two bronze at Athens in 2004, and eight gold at Beijing in 2008. In winning these medals, he has twice equaled Soviet gymnast Alexander Dityatin's record of eight medals (of any type) at a single Olympics. Dityatin garnered eight at the 1980 Summer Olympics, while Phelps won eight medals at both the 2004 and the 2008 Summer Olympics. Out of his eight gold medals from Beijing, five were won in individual events, tying the record for individual gold medals at a single Games originally set by Eric Heiden in the 1980 Winter Olympics and equaled by Vitaly Scherbo at the 1992 Summer Games. Phelps ranks second in total career Olympic medals, after Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina, who won a total of 18 medals (nine gold) spanning three Olympic Games. Phelps's international titles, along with his various world records, have won him the World Swimmer of the Year Award in 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008 and American Swimmer of the Year Award in 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2006, 2007 and 2008. __
