tagged w/ World Records 2008
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BEIJING (Reuters) - Michael Phelps took a record-breaking eighth gold at one Games on Sunday in Beijing to beat fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz’s seven from Munich 1972.
Phelps hugged his team mates in celebration after a comfortable men’s 4x100 meters medley relay win contrasting with the finger-tip, split-second finishes that came in two of his earlier Beijing golds.
His 14 golds, which include six in Athens, make him the most successful Olympian of the modern era by a big margin of five.
With Games spectators still agog at Usain Bolt’s audaciously brilliant 100m win in the blue riband athletics race on Saturday night, the first gold of Day Nine went to Romania.
Constantina Tomescu had time to relax and wave at the crowd before crossing the finish line in the Bird’s Nest stadium after a marathon run that began in Tiananmen Square.
Catherine Ndereba of Kenya took silver and Zhou Chunxiu of China the bronze, with Britain’s world record holder Paula Radcliffe struggling for fitness and well back.
In the highest-profile doping case yet of the August 8-24 Games, Greece’s defending women’s 400 meters hurdles champion Fani Halkia failed a drug test hours before she was to compete.
That recalled the doping sagas that darkened Athens 2004.
But it has been the scintillating sport, not scandals, in Beijing dominating attention and relegating the pre-Games focus on China’s rights record and pollution problems.
Having passed Spitz’s seven golds of 36 years ago, the 23-year-old Phelps now stands alone in the record books.
Blessed with an arm span bigger than his height, Phelps has pumped himself up with hip-hop before races and always looks for his mother in the stands at moments of triumph.
He is guaranteed a lifetime of multi-million corporate deals.
But Phelps has failed to match Spitz in one aspect. His 100m butterfly gold on Saturday was not in a world record time, unlike his other seven wins in Beijing.
All seven of Spitz’s medals came in world record times.
BEIJING (Reuters) - Michael Phelps took a record-breaking eighth gold at one Games on... more
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3 years ago
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A blur in blue, Gay clocked 9.68 seconds to win the 100 final at the U.S. Olympic trials, a time that will not be entered in the books as a world record because it came with the help of a too-strong tailwind.A blur in blue, Gay clocked 9.68 seconds to win the 100 final at the U.S. Olympic... more
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