Posted on 08/16/2008 8:12:16 PM PDT by Perdogg
Eight! Phelps wins record-setting gold in relay
08/16 11:17:56 ETBeijing, China (Sports Network) - Funny how it happened on the eighth day of swimming finals in a country where eight is a lucky number.
Michael Phelps became the winningest athlete at a single Olympics on Sunday morning when he teamed with his U.S.teammates to win the 400-meter medley relay for his eighth gold medal in Beijing, breaking Mark Spitz's 36-year-old record.
Phelps swam the butterfly in the third leg, pulling the Americans back into the lead after breaststroker Brendan Hansen had dropped to third. Jason Lezak closed out the win in the freestyle leg, giving the Americans a time of 3 minutes, 29.34 seconds for a new world record.
Australia's Eamon Sullivan gave Lezak a run in the last 50 meters, but came up short. The Aussies touched in 3:30.04 for the silver.
Japan won bronze in 3:31.98.
Phelps has looked beaten twice in Beijing -- in the 400-meter freestyle relay on Monday before Jason Lezak sprinted to beat France's Alain Bernard on the anchor leg, and in the 100-meter butterfly on Saturday, when a final half- stroke gave Phelps a slimmest-possible margin of victory over Milorad Cavic: .01 seconds.
Already the all-time winningest Olympian, Phelps claimed his 14th gold medal to extend his own record. It was his 16th overall, putting him second all-time in total medal count behind former Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina.
And he turned to his teammates and said THANK YOU. That’s something you can’t fake....he’s the real deal.
No, I believe that it was a mistype and that Italy was DQ’d not Aus.
The official site has the medals/times listed for the race and there’s nothing at all indicating any problem with Aus.
But I’m out west so I am basing it on the offical results online (and they’ve been immediate with the DQ’s all the other times, so I’d suspect it’s correct as is now)
He is No Billy Jean King she licked everybody
He owes his million dollar endorsement deals to Jason Lezak.
He better show Jason some love and buy him a Rolex and a BMW M3 convertible as a thank you.
There would be no 8 golds unless he did the equivalent of coming from behind and catching the french Carl Lewis.
Just watched that on NBC....8 gold medals in this Olympics, 16 total, 14 of which are gold. And the US is 12 for 12 in the 4x100m relay. Spitz’s record broken by the new greatest Olympian of all time, cheered on by Ravens fans after the game....CONGRATULATIONS MICHAEL!! WOOOOOT!!!
For the first time in my life I can say I’m proud to live near Baltimore.
He is Superman. Go USA :)
“..Flipper could still take him tho...”
Yeah. Maybe. But it would be a tight race at any rate.
All you women ever care about is beefcake. Typical. We have brains, too! We’re not just pieces of meat!
SPECTACULAR...Great JOB, Team USA
I think the neighbors might have heard me yelling!
GO USA!
Is that better or worse than Bill Walton?
Can someone explain the commercial Nike has been running all through the olympics....”I got soul but I’m not a soldier.” What the heck does that mean?
Good job to Michael Phelps and team USA.
Thanks for the alert. For those following this closely, how many possible medals does he have left that he can get?
“My cats think I’m nuts! :)
My neighbors do! “
Same here!
All I can say is I wish I was 23 again!
He is one mighty fine 23 year old!
He melts the plastic on my depends! (LOL - just joking I still too young for depends!)
Yes, yes, yes, yes.
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