Phelps Wins 8th Gold: Breaks Spitz's Record

BEIJING — Michael Phelps won his record eighth gold medal Sunday at the Beijing Olympics as a member of the victorious U.S. 400-meter medley relay team, breaking a tie with Mark Spitz for most golds in a single games.

Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen, Phelps and Jason Lezak won in a world-record of 3 minutes, 29.34 seconds, lowering the old mark of 3:30.68 set four years ago in Athens.

The U.S. swept the men's relays in Beijing, with Phelps leading off in the 400 and 800 free relays. Lezak anchored the 400 free to a narrow victory over France to preserve Phelps' historic bid.

Australia took the silver in 3:30.04.

Japan earned the bronze in 3:31.18.

Comments

[DogTown]

GOD!

Can't people give Phelps is due.......
and....
Spitz his due.........

Sheesh! these guys both are world champion let them be already!

[daddydamon]

yawn

[GhostofBillHicks]

ditto,big deal,who cares...

[chinationreport]

Great for Phelps and USA. He is also a nice humble guy.

Some touching article about Dreamers from Death Zones:
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/olympics/2008-08/18/content_6945587.htm

Some others had a great time (Bush in Beijing)
http://www.chinationreport.com/bushputingates.html

http://www.chinationreport.com/#EditorsChoice

[DANOSC]

How fast before McCain gets photographed with Phelps?

[Bftsplk]

Now that Phelps has his "unprecedented" (count the number of times that word was used on NBC's coverage) record number of medals, we need to interview his family members, friends, men-on-the-street on their relationship to him and how they helped him win. We don't need to watch the other events and other athletes; they're unimportant. I mean, half these third world country athletes don't dedicate all of their time to perfecting their sport. Instead they do useless stuff like working for a living, feeding their families, fighting wars, and battling natural disasters... No wonder they don't win more events as evidenced by the medal counts. Boy! did we show them Bangladeshis.....

Sarcasm aside, we should do away with the medal counts by country and attribute the medals to the athletes that won them. Do away with professional athletes at the Olympics and revert to the amateur status as before. Demand the network covering the games not to conduct silly interviews and other time-wasters when there are other events (albeit with no U.S. athletes involved) in progress... they can interview them before or after the Olympics as they do during superbowl season.......

[daddydamon]

thank you

[jpcline004]

This is for Obama4Life and all player haters here. NEWS FLASH! Growth hormone naturally occurs in the human body! People who are extremely tall and lengthy naturally have higher growth hormone levels during puberty and will have the same features as people who abuse it and take it synthetically. Myself, and everyone on my mom's side of the family have huge hands, feet, high cheek bones and are tall and skinny. And big surprise, there are a bunch of good swimmers among us. Doesn't mean we took HGH.

[Clairemont]

I found a site that has some physical characteristics of Michael that piqued my interest: double-jointedness that allows him to turn his hands and size 14 feet more flexibility; low lactic acid production; among other traits. Now if you can connect double-jointedness and low lactic acid to HGH, try it.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1044289/Eleven-golds-US-swimmer-Michael-Phelps-greatest-Olympian-history.html

[BARRISTER]

Is Phelps Swartzenegers's son? Gosh, their faces have the identical bone structure!! What is the gene they share? Anabol icster Oids??

[Clairemont]

Actually, Michael looks more like a young Jerry Lewis to me. Arnold's forehead is sky high and his teeth bite line is very flat if you want to get picky. Michael's forehead is short and his bite line gives a hint that he's spent lots of time mouthbreathing, which makes sense. Throw your jaw out of the water for a quickie every 2 strokes at 6 hours a day starting when you're 10 and see where your body puts its calcium. And have you seen Maria Shriver S.'s face lately?

Maybe we're just not used to see bones anymore. Jaw bones. Working hands and feet. Or kids that exercise from childhood. Calcium is laid down in proportion to stress. Does the pituitary naturally spew out more HGH in response to the needs of the growing body?

We could be seeing a huge shift in our expectations of normal natural growth. Few kids really work their bodies anymore and we're beginning to think these soft sponges are normal. Calcium is laid down in proportion to stress.

[TurgidCaterwauling]

Seems to me we better start getting these coaches and athletes into the science program. If what many of the cynics here say is true, they're a lot smarter than the scientists who are being paid to detect the use of drugs.

[thegreatgiginthesky]

Currently the USA has 19 gold medals, 8 of which has been won by one guy. That is what I call domination.

[TheSeditiousRascal]

Picking a nit: 3 of Phelps medals had other participants- Aaron Piersol, Brendan Hansen, Jason Lezak, Nathan Adrian, Matt Grevers, Cullen Jones, Bem Wildman-Torbiner, Garret Gale-Weber, David Walters, Erik Vendt, Ricky Berens, Klete Keller, Ryan Lochte and Peter Vanderkay. That's 19 Gold's by fifteen Americans and Michael Phelps would be the first to point this out to misanthropical misinformed.

[thegreatgiginthesky]

Oh I'm not saying what the relay teams did was not worthy of praise but it still does not take away from the fact that out of the 19 gold medals won by the US, Phelps has 8 of them.

[RustyNeverSleeps]

Overacheiving busy work
while the 2/3 world starves to death.
Wake up!

[thegreatgiginthesky]

How about all the nations cutting their military budget by half and donating that money to solving world hunger. That to me is a better way of solving the issue.

[BlueZoo]

Someone should put an Evinrude patcn on this kid's butt and that company should give him a huge endorsement contract! Awesome performance and accomplishment! GO USA!

[foxbat]

Good for him! Seems like a very nice young man and seems to have his head on straight. It was interesting hearing his teammates talk about him, and while many people will miss the point and talk about just Phelp's accomplishments, it was just as interesting to hear Phelps talk about his teammates. He recognized, and it was very fitting, that his record-mark came in a team event and, specifically, the 400-meter IM medley.

When you realize that this young man passed on a chance to tie Spitz's seven gold medals in Athens, in 2004, when he gave up his spot in the 400-meter IM medley to Ian Crocker to "do the right thing" for both Crocker and the relay team, it's an even bigger story. Sometimes, nice guys do finish first and with an historic record to boot.

[Brillig]

CONGRATS TO PHELPS! NOW get off of that and tell me why JAMAICAN women just took the GOLD, SILVER and BRONZE in the 100 m finals and NO ONE has mentioned this phenomenon!!

Finally USA ( GOOD OLD CAN'T TAKE A LICKING USA) is now PROTESTING The win

BECAUSE..........wait for it..................BECAUSE..............................BECAUSE

TORI WILLIAMS (USA) believes SHE picked the start - which would give her a lead anyway.

SO NOW< the USA wants the race RUN OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!WOW - Talk about GOOD sportsmanship!!!

[Topfeeder]

Yes, and Bolt from Jamaica won gold in the men's 100M also. What is growing in Jamaica that makes their citizens so fast? LOL!

[philinmedford]

LOL! I saw Bolt jiving to the beat of the music in his head before the race and though: "What are they smokin in Jamaica mon?" (oh wait, I know this one) :0)

[Brillig]

HOW NASTY these freak comments.

So what if you look like the Pillsbury Dough boy! Don't hate Phelps because he's beautiful (AND TALENTED)

THE BIBLE says

"wrath is cruel and anger is outrageous, but who is able to stand before ENVY?"

[wanj]

I like Phelps... he comes off like a nice guy and is not full of himself. Congratulations mister!!! I bet he'll make a ton of $$ from this... Go get 'em!