Michael Phelps the Monster of Swimming

NBC olympics:BEIJING — Michael Phelps won the men’s 200-meter butterfly Wednesday and not even an hour later helped lift the U.S. 4×200m freestyle relay team to victory, becoming the winningest athlete in Olympic history, now with 11 gold medals — and counting.
Michael Phelps wins the 200m butterfly on Day 5 of the Beijing Games for his record-setting 10th career Olympic gold medal.

BEIJING - AUGUST 11: Michael Phelps of the United States celebrates finishing the Men's 4 x 100m Freestyle Relay Final in first place to win the gold medal held at the National Aquatics Center on Day 3 of the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games on August 11, 2008 in Beijing, China. (Photo by Shaun Botterill/Getty Images)

The U.S. men didn’t just set the world record, they destroyed it. Their 6:58.56 was 4.68 seconds faster than the previous record, also set by the U.S. men at the 2007 World Championships.

Phelps swam a 1:43 31 leading off the relay, just short of his personal best, and the world record, set the day before in winning the 200m freestyle. Ryan Lochte, Ricky Berens and Peter Vanderkaay did the rest, as the silver medalists from Russia finished more than five seconds behind.

“For four years we knew we could probably get under 7 minutes,” Lochte said in a poolside interview with NBC. “It’s great to finally do it.”

Phelps is now five-for-five in Beijing, with a world record in every final.

But the race was closer than Phelps expected. Two others went under 1:53. Laszlo Cseh of Hungary was second in 1:52.70 and Japan’s Takeshi Matsuda won the bronze in 1:52.97.

As he came off the pool deck, Phelps disclosed that his goggles had filled with water, adding, “I could not believe how close to me those guys were.”

“I can’t see anything,” Phelps said to his coach, Bob Bowman.

Later, after the relay, Phelps admitted he was bothered with the goggle problem even though he broke his own world mark.

“As soon as I dove in, they filled up,” he said. “I was more or less trying to count my strokes, hoping I’d be dead on at the turns,” he said. “I’m disappointed because I know I can go faster, but there was nothing I could do. I handled it the best way I could.”

Along with the five golds he has now won in Beijing, Phelps won six at the 2004 Athens Games. Phelps also won two bronze medals in 2004.

Coming into Wednesday’s action at the Water Cube, Phelps stood at nine career Olympic golds, tied with four others for most career golds, among them Mark Spitz and track star Carl Lewis.

“I’m almost at a loss for words,” Phelps said of breaking the career record. “To be in the same group with the greatest Olympians who ever lived, to have the most golds in history is unbelievable.

“After the fly, I was trying to focus, but I just kept thinking, ‘Wow, the greatest Olympian of all time.’ That’s a pretty cool title.”

Spitz still holds the mark for most golds won by one athlete in a single Olympics, seven in Munich in 1972.

That’s the next goal in Phelps’ sights.

“It’s not over yet,” Phelps said. “Anything can happen in the next three events.”

Yet to come: the 200m individual medley Friday; the 100m butterfly Saturday; and the 4×100m medley relay, with prelims on Friday, the final Sunday.

Check out the biography of Michael Phelps here on NBC olympics.

What more can you expect from Phelps he is the greatest swimmer alive on planet earth!

Photo:Yahoosport/GettyImages

~ by da|v|ned on August 13, 2008.