BEIJING - Swimmer Michael Phelps went on Sunday where no one
has been before to win a record eighth gold at one Olympics and better Mark
Spitz's famous 1972 feat.
The American stole the limelight even from Jamaican Usain
Bolt's audaciously brilliant 100-meter dash win in the athletics showpiece that
has been the Beijing Games' other defining moment so far.
China is way ahead in the medal table with 31 gold medals to
the US' 19 in a Games that Beijing hopes will showcase a more open face as well
as its new global economic clout.
The hosts took one gold medal when US shooter Matt Emmons had
his moment of terrible deja vu, unbelievably throwing away a big lead right at
the death for the second time in the Olympics. Matt Emmons had a bizarre misfire
on his final shot, repeating what he did the same four years ago in Athens by
firing at the wrong target.
Phelps, 23, held his arms aloft and hugged team mates after a
relatively easy men's 4x100-m medley relay win unlike the finger-tip finishes in
two of his earlier Beijing golds.
The all-time most successful Olympian, who has over nine days
in China proved himself to be one of the greatest sportsmen the world has seen,
showed he was still human, though.
"I just want to see my mom," said Phelps, who as a kid in
Baltimore had a screaming fit at his first swimming lesson because he did not
want to get his face wet.
Phelps' 14th career gold, after six in Athens, took him past fellow American
Spitz's seven at one Games in Munich. He has five more than anyone else in the
Olympics' 112-year history.
