Phelps Makes It 8 Gold Medals

A huge congratulations to Michael Phelps today, as he becomes the "Greatest" Olympian of all time, and surpasses Mark Spitz, with a record 8 gold medals. I have not written anything about Phelps, because I believe in "jinxes" and did not want to have to backpedal from heaping glory on this amazing athlete. It is also "cool" that he seems to be a nice guy, and that in itself is kind of rare in top athletes.
This Mr. Phelps proved his Mission was Not Impossible, and we were witnesses to this amazing feat~~~How Cool Is That!! :)

Anyway the story of the "century" is from the Associated Press, at Yahoo News and reads:
Michael Phelps locked arms with his three teammates, as though they were in a football huddle calling a play, then hugged each one of them.
It took a team to make him the grandest of Olympic champions. And one last big push from Phelps himself hard right to the end of a mesmerizing nine days in Beijing, Phelps helped the Americans come from behind Sunday in a race they’ve never lost at the Olympics, cheering from the deck as Jason Lezak brought it home for a world record in the 400-meter medley relay. It was Phelps’ history-making eighth gold medal of these games.
“Everything was accomplished,” he said. “I will have the medals forever.”

Phelps sure did his part to win No. 8, eclipsing Mark Spitz’s seven-gold performance at the 1972 Munich Games.
Aaron Peirsol got the Americans off to the lead in the backstroke, but Brendan Hansen—a major disappointment in this Olympic year—slowed them down with only the third-fastest breaststroke leg.
By the time Phelps dived in for the butterfly, the U.S. was trailing Australia and Japan. That’s when he really went to work.

With his long arms whirling across the water like propellers, Phelps caught the two guys ahead of him on the return lap and passed off to Lezak a lead of less than a second for the freestyle. The Australians countered with former world record-holder Eamon Sullivan as their anchor.
“I was thinking not to blow the lead,” Lezak said. “I was really nervous.”
Sullivan tried to chase down Lezak and appeared to be gaining as they came to the wall, but Lezak finished in 3 minutes, 29.34 seconds—Phelps’ seventh world record in his personal Great Haul of China.
link to full story