Monday, August 18, 2008

2008: first Olympic athlete to win 14 gold medals

Last week I wrote about swimmer Michael Phelps winning his eleventh gold medal at the Beijing Olympics. Well, now he has 14.

As expected, Sunday morning Phelps won his eighth gold medal in Beijing. Phelps and teammates Aaron Piersol, Brendan Hansen and Jason Lezak won the 4X100 meter medley relay with a world record time of 3:29.34 minutes.

Phelps has 16 career medals, second only to former Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina (18). His 14 career gold medals is an all-time record. During the 1980 Moscow games, Soviet gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin won eight overall medals. But no one until Phelps had won that many gold in one Olympics.

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