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Baltimore - US swim star Michael Phelps, who has won a record 18 Olympic gold medals, announced on Wednesday on social media that he and his fiancee are expecting a baby boy.
On Twitter and Instagram, Phelps sent out a photo with he and the mother-to-be, former Miss California beauty queen Nicole Johnson, holding a tiny pair of boy's swim shorts.
"We found out 8weeks ago we were expecting... Today we're over 12 weeks and it looks like we're having a boy," Phelps said in his message accompanying the photo.
The news comes after Phelps swam competitively for the first time in three months, winning the men's 200m individual medley at the US Pro Swim Series meet in Minneapolis as he works toward the Rio de Janeiro Olympics next August - or about three months after the birth.
Phelps, whose record 22 overall Olympic medals include a historic one-Games haul of eight golds at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and four golds with two silvers at the 2012 London Olympics, also competed at the 2000 Sydney and 2004 Athens Olympics.
His bid for a fifth berth in the Olympics was almost scuttled by a drink driving arrest last year that kept him off the US team at the World Championships this year in Russia.
Instead he swam at the US championships and won gold in the 100m and 200m butterfly and 200m individual medley with times faster than those of the world champion - a sign he is fit and again a favorite for gold in Brazil next year.
