Phelps swims to Olympic gold record
- 00:00:45
- ITN
Phelps swims to Olympic gold record
US swimmer Michael Phelps has become the most successful Olympic athlete ever after winning the 11th gold medal of his career. Phelps collected his fourth gold in Beijing in the 200 metres butterfly and made it five out of five just under an hour later in the 4x200m freestyle relay - both in world record times. Added to his six golds from Athens four years ago, the two victories saw Phelps surpass the nine golds won by Paavo Nurmi, Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz and Larysa Latynina to cement his place in Olympic history. "I'm almost at a loss for words," said Phelps, who remains on course to surpass Spitz's achievement of seven golds in one Games. "To be the most decorated Olympian of all time, it just sounds weird. I am speechless. "It started to sink in a little after the butterfly. I was trying to focus on my next race but I kept thinking 'Wow. Greatest Olympian of all time.' It's a pretty neat title and I'm definitely honoured. "When you have an Olympic gold medal it stays with you forever. It never gets old listening to your national anthem with a gold medal around your neck." The 23-year-old led from the halfway point in the butterfly but was made to battle hard to win in a world record time of 1:52.03 seconds, beating his own previous best by 0.06s ahead of Hungary's Laszlo Cseh and Japan's Takeshi Matsuda. "I couldn't see anything for the last 100m, my goggles pretty much filled up with water," said Phelps, who remains on target to surpass Spitz's achievement of seven golds in one Games. "It just kept getting worse and worse through the race and I was having trouble seeing the walls to be honest. But it's fine. I wanted to break the record and wanted to go 1:51 or better but in the circumstances I guess it's not too bad." As expected, Phelps then led off a dominant US quartet in the 4x200m relay, swimming the first leg more than two seconds under world record schedule. His team-mates Ryan Lochte, Ricky Berens and Peter Vanderkaay carried on where he left off and eventually clocked a new world record time of 6:58.56, the first time the seven-minute barrier has been broken and almost five seconds quicker than their previous best.
ITN | August 13, 2008
