By John Lohn
BEIJING, China, August 17. HE did it. When the United States touched the wall with a world record in the men's 400 medley relay, Michael Phelps officially stood on the top of Mount Olympus. The 23-year-old wrapped up the greatest performance in Olympic history by capturing his eighth gold medal and setting his seventh world record.
Joining Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen and Jason Lezak, Phelps was part of a relay that clocked in at 3:29.34 to better the previous world record of 3:30.68, set by the United States at the 2004 Olympics in Athens. By winning his eighth gold, Phelps moved one ahead of Mark Spitz for the most in a single Games. He raised his career total to 16 medals, 14 of which are gold.
Peirsol got the United States started with a backstroke split of 53.16, which was followed by Hansen's breaststroke leg of 59.27. Phelps followed in 50.15 on the butterfly leg and Lezak finished it off with a split of 46.76. During the medal ceremony, Phelps was the recipient of a standing ovation from the crowd in the Water Cube.
"I'm at a loss for words," Phelps said. "These guys were amazing and made it possible. It shows how much teamwork and togetherness we have. The whole thing, from winning by a hundredth of a second to finishing it off with a world record, it's an amazing experience and something I'll have forever. I literally wanted to do something that no one's ever done before in the sport. Without the help of my teammates, it wouldn't have been possible."
The Australian foursome of Hayden Stoeckel, Brenton Rickard, Andrew Lauterstein and Eamon Sullivan finished second in 3:30.04 while Japan, fueled by Kosuke Kitajima's breast split of 58.07, was the bronze-medal winner in 3:31.18. Kitajima was joined by Junichi Miyashita, Takuro Fujii and Hisayoshi Sato.
Russia placed fourth in 3:31.92 and New Zealand was the fifth-place finisher in 3:33.39. Sixth went to Great Britain (3:33.69) and seventh was South Africa (3:33.70). Italy was disqualified for an early takeoff on the last relay exchange.
"That was a hard race," Hansen said. "It was very emotional and all four of us wanted to get it right. There was added pressure for Michael to get his eighth gold. We had a team meeting without the coaches where we said we wanted to make American proud of us."
Results: 2008 Olympic Games - Swimming
Premium Members - Search More About: Michael Phelps
Reaction Time Comments
August 16, 2008 Anyone look at Dara's split? The fastest of all the women! Amazing.
If it wasn't for the breaststroke leg the US would have won. Submitted by: Brasse
August 16, 2008 Lezak did great again. Second fastest split for freestyle.
The Aussie Rikard came very close to jumping, while all the Americans had safe exchanges. Submitted by: Brasse
August 16, 2008 Coolest thing I have ever seen! 50.1 split....fastest split ever I think. Submitted by: crafto
August 16, 2008 Kitajima went 58.07. That is just sick. Submitted by: MJB
August 16, 2008 Richard's 58.5 is pretty absurd. Thats a full second better than his best time I believe, but Phelps' 50.1 with a very slow relay exchange haha was incredible. 8 gold 7 WR's just amazing. Submitted by: WUswimmer
August 16, 2008 i dont know if you meant it in a good or a bad way when you say his time is sick... but kitajima was great. his 58.0 split just shows what a true champion he is in breaststroke. rickard did a great time too. in comparison, hansen was just dying on his second lap. Submitted by: Tornado
August 16, 2008 Rikards time was offset by his 0.04 time from touch to his leaving. Kitajima @ 0.23 and Hansen @ 0.23 are normal GOOD take offs.
Stili if Rikard had a normal takeoff he would have been at 58.78, better than Hansen. And Kitagima is swimming his best ever.
MAGNINI Filippo @ -0.04 got Italy DQd! Rikard came very close, too close. Submitted by: Brasse
August 16, 2008 Hansen scared the crap out of me. He died so hard the last 20 meters i didnt even know if he was going to make it to the wall. Luckily he still split a sub par 59.25. Submitted by: WUswimmer
August 16, 2008 How weird was it that Thorpe was in front of Mrs. Phelps during the race? The guy who said Phelps would fail in his quest for 8 gold medals and he had to listen to Mrs. Phelps cheering on the relay. Hey, Ian...OUCH! Submitted by: paddles
August 16, 2008 Did anyone catch Ian Thorpe's face after the race, sitting right in front of Mrs. Phelps? He looked a bit sheepish; I bet he knew he had inspired Michael with his skeptical comments about the 8 golds! Submitted by: liquidassets
August 17, 2008 I thought most of this meet was great, but I think that both the USA and Australia fell just a little short of expectations. Not that they didn't have great meets, but I'm sure that both countries expected 2 or 3 more gold medals each. Congratulations to the rest of the world for pushing the "superpowers" all the way.
Did anybody else keep a running score using the FINA points table? I did. It was pretty cool. According to my tallies the USA won the men's competition over Australia by 410 points to 234, with Japan next on 167. The American women also beat the Australian women by 360 points to 338 (close!), with Great Britain next on 210. These points meant that combined the USA was the top nation with 770 points, Australia next with 572, and then Great Britain with 333 points. With the next Olympics being in London, I think that they will get even stronger, and will really challenge Australia in the next Commonwealth Games.
Like the rest of you, I am now looking forward to Rome in 2009! Submitted by: Cobber
August 17, 2008 That is surprising that you had the US women ahead of the Aussies I will have to check out their scoring system.
By the way, was anybody able to make out what Michael was mouthing or yelling to his teammates and the fans after the finish of the relay? He said it twice at least, and although they replayed it a few times I still couldn't make it out. Any good lipreaders here?? Submitted by: liquidassets
August 17, 2008 It sounded like Phelps was saying, "Let's go!"
immediately afterward.
Submitted by: kcswimjk
August 17, 2008 Let's go?? That wouldn't fit after the race was over.. Submitted by: liquidassets
August 17, 2008 I thought he said "Thank you!" two times. Submitted by: crafto
August 17, 2008 It sounded to me like just part of the celebration -- "Let's go!" as in, "Get up!" or "That's what I'm talking about!" It's just an expression of celebration.
I'm talking about what he was yelling rihgt after Lezak finished. I'm sure he said something else when the four guys were in a huddle afterwards. Submitted by: kcswimjk
August 17, 2008 If you guys think Lezaks 46.06 effort on the free relay was special, then I've gotta mention Cam Gibson's (NZ) 47.00 free split on the medley relay final. His best from a standing start is 49.5 so he dropped 2.5 seconds on the relay!! Submitted by: jubl
August 17, 2008 Imagine if Phelps had secided to swim the 400 free instead of the 400 I.M. I think he would have gone sub 3:40. Also, he has been 53.0 and 1:54.6 in the backs over a year ago when he was not totally rested. What do you imagine he would have gone in those under the understanding that he would have substitued them over other events? I know it would not have happened but it is fun to think of the fact that he might be the best in the world at those 3 events when he has the chance to swim them under current circumstances. Submitted by: crafto
August 20, 2008 Please take a look at this article (link below) about Phelps where the author rejects Phelps as beinng in the running for worlds greatest athlete/Olympian. The author doesn't get all the facts straight, nor does he understand swimming well enough to make the judgements he does, and I don't completely agree with him, but I do think he has a point there in terms of the relatively smaller pool that Phelps competes with compared with, say, Jordan, etc. It would be exciting to expand the base of U.S. Swimming to see what other untapped talent might be lying out there....which is, in part, what Phelps himself is trying to use his fame for.
http://www.beyondchron.org/news/index.php?itemid=5989 Submitted by: liquidassets
August 20, 2008 One guys opinion. I have been reading other message boards (other sports....entertainment...etc.) and most people (like 99%!) think Phelps is the best ever.
So, like I said, it is an opinion and really, who cares? Wait! Here comes MY opinion. I think Phelps IS the greatest in ANY sport. Then again, I am biased. LOL
Seriously, it seems that there is a fan base out there who feel that if it isn't football, baseball, golf or basketball, it isn't REAL sport. Welcome to America. Submitted by: paddles
August 20, 2008 Well I'm more on your side but to me the interesting thing about it was that it got me thinking about untapped potential. On these threads on here, I've always been the one saying I don't care whether swimmers become famous or whether swimming grows in volume or gets its due recognition. But if those things could lead to a larger talent pool; it's intriguing to think that there may be even faster swimmers out there in other sports. The problem where I grew up was that everyone skiied, and the coach prohibited skiing; when kids heard that, half the team quit just like that. Submitted by: liquidassets
September 4, 2008 Does anyone know if Phelps' fly split was the fastest ever? I'm thinking Crocker in Athens was before this. Submitted by: drg
September 4, 2008 I don't know about the fastest split, but am I the only one getting edgy about the first sub-50 100 meter fly? With the way the men's 100 freestyle times made HUGE drops, isn't the 100 fly due for a sub-50? I always thought it would be Crocker in Beijing..... Perhaps a new talent (out there) ready to bust through? Submitted by: paddles
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