Phelps wins his fifth gold in Beijing

Michael Phelps ended all the historical debates on Wednesday when he won two more swimming golds, bringing his Beijing tally to five and his overall haul to eleven.

The 23 year-old from Baltimore has now surpassed the most golds and medals in Olympic history by an individual. Paavo Nurmi, Carl Lewis, gymnast Larissa Larynina and swimmer Mark Spitz all won nine golds during their careers. But there remained the little matter of Raw Ewry, who won ten golds a century ago. However, there have always been two caveats for Olympic statisticians.

EDITOR’S CHOICE
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Phelps had a busy day on Wednesday, even by his standards. He was matched for at least half of the 200m butterfly by the unheralded Moss Burmeister of New Zealand, swimming in an outside lane. But Phelps’ famous surge in the final length of the pool saw everyone off, and he won in one minute 52.03sec. Inevitably, it was another world record, but only the fourth of the morning at that juncture, having been preceded by two men’s 100m freestyle semis, and the gold medal winning performance of Italian, Federica Pellegrini in the women’s 200m free, with 1.54.82. In second place, Sara Isakovic won Slovenia’s first ever swimming medal, and Pang Jiaying of China won bronze.

Phelps revealed after the 200m butterfly that he had been swimming virtually blind in the second half of the race. “I couldn’t see anything for the last 100,” he said. “My goggles pretty much filled up with water. It just kept getting worse and worse, and I was having trouble seeing the walls. I wanted to break the record, and go 1.51 or better. But for the circumstances, I guess it’s not too bad.”

The best race of the day was the women’s 200m individual medley, in which Stephanie Rice of Australia came from behind in the final metres to beat defending champion, Kirsty Coventy of Zimbabwe by 14/100ths of a second, in 2.08.45. It was Rice’s second gold of the week, the Aussie having won the 400m in similar fashion on Monday, also beating Coventry into silver medal spot.

Phelps’ second gold came in the 4x200m relay. Having been beaten into third in the opening leg of the 4x100m freestyle two days ago, and contributed to a near defeat by France, Phelps made no mistake today, handing over to colleague, Ryan Lochte two full bodylengths and two and half seconds ahead of Patrick Murphy of Australia. After that, it was a procession up and down the pool, the US squad pulling further and further ahead. The first team to break the seven-minute barrier for the event, they won in 6.58.56 to set another world record.

There remain three minor items and one major on Phelps’ agenda. If he wins golds in his three remaining events, one of which is a relay, that will make eight, beating Spitz’s seven from Munich 1972. And Phelps’ sponsor will have to cough up $1 million for that achievement.