Yes! Michael Phelps!

I was glued to the television at 10:00 A.M.(GMT+8). My girls were in daughter #4's bedroom similarly glued to the TV screen. We are waiting to witness history. The 1500m men's freestyle finals was on - an upset! A relatively unknown Tunisian swimmer at lane 1 won the event. The 4x100m women's medley relay came next. The Australian quartet won. Now comes the final event that could make or break Michael's bid for the 8th gold medal.

Peirsol gave the US team as he gave them a good lead when he did his backstroke. Hansen increased their lead with his breaststroke. Michael gave his best shot and lead by half a body after his tumble-turn and superb underwater dolphin kicks. It was almost a sure win but I still kept my fingers crossed. Jason Lezak would still have to swim against Eamon Sullivan, the silver medalist in the 100m freestyle! As Phelps hit the touch pad, Lezak dove, dolphin kicked and never looked back. After 36 years, Mark Spitz's 7-gold medal in a single Olympic was broken.

Congratulations Michael Phelps! You are now the best among the best of Olympians.

The 8th Gold Quest

Today, at 10:58 A.M. (GMT+8)Michael Phelps will try to break Mark Spitz's 7-gold medals in one Olympic. In case you don't know, Michael Phelps bagged his 7th gold yesterday in the 100m butterfly. The catch is, Phelps's last event is the men's 4x100m medley relay. Phelps will do the butterfly,(whatelse) as it's his best event. I'm really not sure who will be his relay teammates for in the past relays, the US team had the tendency to have a different team to qualify for the heat and semifinals. The 8th gold quest is note solely dependent on Michael. The pressure would totally fall on the last swimmer - the freestyler- which would probably be Jason Lezak. Let's just hope that Lezak will swim as well as he did in the 4x100m freestyle.

God Bless! Good Luck!

Mark Spitz : 7 Golds

The Munich Olympics in 1972 was marred by the death of 11 Israeli athletes. It was also the year the US swimmer Mark Spitz, then 22 years old, won 7 golds. He set a new world record in each of the seven events (the 100 m freestyle, 200 m freestyle, 100 m butterfly, 200 m butterfly, 4 x 100 m freestyle relay, 4 x 200 m freestyle relay and the 4 x 100 m medley relay).

Mark Spitz is synonymous with excellence. Doing a Mark Spitz is winning against all odds.In 2000, Mark was voted Athlete of the Century in water sports and one of the six greatest Olympians ever by Sports Illustrated. Recently, the International Olympic Committee selected Mark as one of its five athletes of the Century.

It's the 6th Gold !

Michael Phelps did it again! He got his 6th gold in the 200m individual medley breaking both the World and Olympic Records at 1:54:23. It was a close swim between teammates Ryan Lochte and Phelps but it was Laszlo Cshe who got the silver with Lochte in 3rd position. I guess Lochte felt fine with his win for earlier this morning he won and broke the World record in the 200m backstroke. Go boys!

Phelps Did it Again!

Michael Phelps is now 3 out of 3 in his quest to beat Mark Spitz's 36 year old record of 7 golds in the Olympic. He won the 200 meter freestyle finishing in 1 minute, 42.96 seconds, breaking the mark 1:43.86 he set at last year's world championships. Phelps' Events are: 200m freestyle, 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, 200m individual medley, 400m individual medley, 4x100m freestyle relay, 4x200m freestyle relay, 4x200m medley. Done events are the 200m freestyle, 400m IM, and 400mX100 freestyle. He was slated to swim the 4x200m freestyle relay but he did not.

Phelps also qualified in the preliminaries in the 100m freestyle but again opted out. He might also back out of Thursday's 200m backstroke. At this point, Phelps is using his brain in choosing his events. I think he opted out of the 4x200m freestyle because the finals for that event and the 200m butterfly will be held one hour apart. There's no way Phelps can recover from his 200m free relay then go all out for his 200m butterfly. So what other event will Phelps swim? The 4x200m medley?

Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps's 400 meter individual medley record of 4:00:84 broke the Olympics, World and US record to date. Phelps incredible swim was 2:32 seconds faster than Cshe of Hungary and 4:25 seconds faster than fellow team mate Ryan Lochte. In the 1972 Berlin Olympics, swimmer Mark Spitz of USA shone with 4 golds. Not contented with his 4 golds, Spitz vowed to get 7 golds in the 1976 Montreal Olympics.

Michael Phelps got 6 golds in the 2004 Athens Olympics. He was just one medal short to break Mark Spitz's 7 gold record. No other Olympic swimmer has gotten this close to Spitz's gold record. Australia's Ian Thorpe only got 3 gold medals in the 2000 Sydney Olympics. Phelps target this Olympics is to finally beat Spitz's 7 gold record. Phelps has one under his belt now. Today at 11:30 A.M (GMT+) Phelps will be in the 4 x 100m men's freestyle relay. Let's see if Phelps will bag his second gold.

I just watched the hair-splitting finals of the 4x100m freestyle relay. Somewhere between the 3rd and 4th relay swimmer, France moved ahead. It was all up to Lezak to catch up with France. In the last 25 meter Lezak swam as if his life depended on it and won the gold for the USA team. It's Phelps's second gold medal. Five more to go!