Phelps nears the turning of history
Roar Guru
By Alan Nicolea, 15 Aug 2008 Alan Nicolea is a Roar Guru
- Tagged:
- Beijing, gold medal, individual medley, Mark Spitz, Michael Phelps, world record
Another step has been taken by Michael Phelps in his pursuit of the world record held by Mark Spitz. Phelps won his semi-final and has qualified for the 200 metre individual medley.
The American, who has now won five gold medals in Beijing, is looking to break the record of seven gold medals held by his compatriot, who achieved the mark in Munich, 1972.
Despite winning his semi-final, Phelps did not register the best time.
That honour was left to fellow American Ryan Lochte.
But Phelps remains confident about his chances tomorrow.
“I only wanted to swim my heat and achieve a good platform for tomorrow,” Phelps said.
“I feel good. I think in the next few days, the most important thing for me will be to rest as much as possible. If I do that, I will be fine.”
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- Explore:
- Beijing, gold medal, individual medley, Mark Spitz, Michael Phelps, world record
sheek said | August 16th 2008 @ 3:44pm | Report comment
Call me sour, ungrateful, unappreciative, biased, whatever. But I sure as hell hope one of the medley relay teams (Australia?) jumps out of its collective skin to pip the Yanks for the gold medal, thus denying Phelps his 8 gold medals at one Olympics.
While I can admire Phelps as a phenomenal swimmer, & a reasonably decent human being, there’s something intrinsicly wrong with the structural setup of swimming that can allow one person to win 8 medals at one Olympics. Perhaps too many of the events are alike?
If I’m being uncharitable, so be it.
ohtani's jacket said | August 16th 2008 @ 3:59pm | Report comment
I’ll be sad to see Spitz’ record go as there’s something intrinsically cooler about a 1970s record, but Phelps has had some amazing swims in these Olympics. It’s a shame that it’s overshadowed some of the other great performances as there were other double gold medalists in the pool who were just as impressive as Phelps, but you have to admire the way he’s achieved everything he set out to do.
mtngry said | August 16th 2008 @ 6:54pm | Report comment
Can we convince him to secede from America and be his own nation for the olympics?
Sandy B said | August 16th 2008 @ 11:22pm | Report comment
You have to admire Michael Phelps’ classic come from behind finish in the 100m butterfly today to touch out the serbian swimmer. Subsequently the Serbian team appealed based upon the video evidence which they thought appeared to show their swimmer touched the wall at least at the same time. The veiw that has been shown is an aerial photo which is extremely unclear on my TV.
In the finish between the French and US teams in the 100m relay the equally tight finish was shown on TV from below the water. The hands touching the wall were very clear without the splash.
Why was the below water shot not made available in the 100m butterfly finish? Is there some sort of cover up occuring here or just continued Channel 7 slackness?