And then there was 1
Last night in Beijing, Michael Phelps won his 3rd gold metal of the 2008 summer Olympics in the 200 meter freestyle. This marked his 9th gold metal [starting with the 6 he won in Athens 4 years ago] and it put him in very elite company. Only 4 Olympians prior to Phelps had won this many gold metals:Paavo Nurmi - Finland (3 in 1920, 5 in 1924, 1 in 1928)
Larissa Latynina - Russia (4 in 1956, 5 in 1962)
Mark Spitz - US (2 in 1968, 7 in 1972)
Carl Lewis - US (4 in 1984, 2 in 1988, 2 in 1992, 1 in 1996)
Today Mr. Phelps joined an even smaller group of athletes - just him all by himself. Winning both the 200 meter butterfly and 4 x 200 meter freestyle relay, Phelps now has won a record setting 11 gold metals and has a chance for 3 more in these games, which could be a total of 8 gold metals surpassing Mr. Spitz's record for a single Olympics. As for the only other metal record he would not hold, he would have to come back for a 3rd Olympics to pass Latynina's 18 overall metals.
I'm not sure there are any words that can describe how impressive Phelps has been so far - 5 events - 5 gold metals - 5 world records. And if he could go 8 for 8, this will be sport domination that will only make sense sometime into the future when we can grasp how dominate he really is.
posted by TheWino @ 12:14 PM
1 Comments:
He (Mr. Phelps) is amazing, but at what cost? Aren't there hundreds of other stories that are not being told, all because of Mikey's gold rush?
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