Phelps creates record in Olympics by winning his 8th gold medal

August 17, 2008 · Filed under Games, Olympics 2008 · Tagged Michael Phelps, Olympics 2008

Now the day comes for which every fan of Michael Phelps and every American was waiting.Michael Phelps set the new world record in the history of Olympics by winning 8 gold medals in a single Olympic.Now from today onwards, Sunday 17th August, is remembered as the day of every American,day of every Olympic games fan and finally the day of Michael Phelps.Michael Phelps became the first competitor in the history of the Olympics to win eight gold medals at single Games,and surpassing the record set by fellow US swimmer Mark Spitz 36 years ago. With the United States’ world record-setting victory in the men’s 4x100m medley relay, which closed the swimming competition at the Water Cube, Phelps broke the record Spitz set in Munich in 1972, and which was once thought to be unassailable. Now the Phelps total score of gold medal is 14,6 in Athens Olympics and 8 in the Beijing Olympics. His 14 career gold medals are the most of any Olympian, with his nearest rivals Spitz, athletes Carl Lewis and Paavo Nurmi and Gymnast Larysa Latynina – who all won nine in their careers.At the age of 23, Phelps has set a record for the total number of medals won by a male Olympian with 16.Now only only Latynina’s 18 career medals exceed Phelps’s total.

Michael Phelps (right), Aaron Peirsol (center) and Brendan Hansen (left) react during the men's 4x100m medley relay swimming final in Beijing.

After winning the relay race Phelps said,”I wanted to do something no one else had done in sport. This goes hand-in-hand with my goal of changing the sport of swimming”. Phelps had opened the swimming competition with a victory in the first event, the 400m individual medley, and went on to win the 200m medley, 100m and 200m butterfly, 200m freestyle and both the 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle relays.

Seven of his golds – including the first six – all came with world records, while his seventh, in the 100m butterfly, was by a margin of just one one-hundredth of a second.On his seventh event when he was not succeeded in setting the world record he said,”It has been from getting my hand on the wall and winning by one one-hundredth to doing my best times in every event”.n Athens four years ago, Phelps won six gold medals (100m and 200m butterfly, 200 and 400m individual medley, 4x200m freestyle relay and 4x100m medley relay), and two bronze (200m free and 4x100m free relay).

In the last I would like to congratulate Michael Phelps and every fan of Michael Phelps on his wonderful victory and on creating a world record.