Here they are, our heroes: Michael Phelps, Brendan Hansen, Jason Lezak and Aaron Piersol. Mission accomplished.
Phil Spencer:
Michael Phelps did it. He really is the greatest Olympian alive today. Eight gold medals in a single Olympics. What a blissful ending. What a showmanship. A class act like no other.
Ambrose Aban:
So young and so tender. He brought maturity and elegance to the Olympics. In lavish style, no less. Phelps came to Beijing with the goals that couldn’t have been bigger and margins for error that couldn’t have been smaller. And he scored. One final after another, one world record after another. He touched the wall first, and at times by a 100th of a second faster than his strongest rivals. It was nothing stopping Phelps. There was nobody who could stop him, not even team mates, Aaron Piersol, Ryan Lochte and greatest rivals, Eamon Sullivan and Grant Hackett of Australia or Pieter Van Den Hoogenband of The Neitherlands -- high achievers and world record toppers.
Chris Goodrgide:
Day after day and night after night, we see Phelps working hard and showcasing world class performances at the Water Cube. In a perfect storm of athletic brilliance, Phelps had exceeded great expectations and lived up to all the hypes and the superlatives, putting together the most incredible Olympics ever.
Jefferey Johnson:
It's almost unreal, watching Phelps today, showing off his powerful butterfly in the 400-meter medley relay and even more exciting watching him touched the wall first to let teammate Jason Lezak to finish it off in another explosive ending.
Chris Goodridge:
You know, Phelps is right about one thing, when someone says you can’t do something, it shows that anything is possible. When you put your mind to a certain thing, it can happen. The biggest thing is nothing is impossible. All it takes is an imagination. I couldn't agree more with this boy.
Ambrose Aban:
Phelps has certainly transformed the face of swimming. The Phelps became the face of Beijing. If his big goal was to change the sport of swimming, he has done it. First, he broke Spitz’s mark that stood 36 years and, considering the increased world competition in the sport, was considered unsurpassable until Phelps came along with a wing span three inches longer than his 6-foot-5 body.
George Tyler:
We heard him saying to the reporters when he arrived in Beijing, "you are the ones who are saying it" Phelps didn't promise us 8 gold medals, he said he would do his best to win 8 events. Even as rivals (the Frenchmen and others and even Spitz himself) had taken some shots at him from afar and journalists covering Beijing had tried to get in his head with some comments, he carried himself with class and dignity.
Jefferey Johnson:
For nine long days, Phelps swum his butt off to break world records. He rose to all his events. He gave it his all. And his team mates appreciated that. Everday he walked to the starting block (like the rest of them), adjusted his goggles and cap and stretched before plunging into his lane and swum with all his might...and won all the events he raced. According to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports today, Phelps "didn’t just have to come to the pool each morning and swim faster than the rest of the world. He had to take the day-in, day-out grind of the competition. These nine days seemed endless, one more challenge after the other, no room for the slightest of slip-ups."
[BEIJING 08]
By Dan Wetzel
Yahoo! Sports
Meanwhile, everyone else ganged up on him. They all wanted to be the one to defeat Michael Phelps, so they geared up in their individual specialties, giving them their best for one day and then letting someone else take a shot at him the next.
“Everyone on the planet is trying to make him work, giving him obstacles,” said Milorad Cavic, the Californian who swam for Serbia. Cavic came closest to defeating him, losing by one hundredth of a second in the 100-meter butterfly and forcing Phelps to make a dramatic and truly most last second of comebacks.
“It’s been nothing but an upward rollercoaster,” Phelps said. “It’s been nothing but fun.”
The truth was Phelps couldn’t lose here. He simply wouldn’t lose here. Couple that duel with Cavic and the wild comeback in the 4x100 free relay, and Phelps didn’t just smash records and cruise to gold, he turned swimming into an edge-of-your-seat, must-watch event.
“The whole things, every race, one after the other from winning by one-hundredth of a second (Saturday) to finishing it off with a world record, it’s the most amazing experience and something I’ll have forever,” Phelps said.
Whether swimming really changes or not isn’t the issue. It was Phelps’ individual genius that was on display here, putting him in the discussion as the greatest Olympian of all time even as his career still has at least one more games to go. When it’s all said and done, he could wind up with 20 gold medals in his career, a haul almost too big to comprehend. That’s Phelps, though, always looking for more, always wondering what else could be accomplished.
By the time Lezak touched the pad here Sunday, the impossible had become possible. Phelps challenged the world, carried the weight of it on his shoulders and now, at last, Spitz’s gold standard was gone. Victory and history in Beijing.
“I’m at a loss for words,” Phelps said.
They gave him another medal, cranked up a final “Star-Spangled Banner” and as he looked over at his mother and sisters in the crowd he finally did something new.
He broke down and cried.
Phil Spencer:
Michael Phelps did it. He really is the greatest Olympian alive today. Eight gold medals in a single Olympics. What a blissful ending. What a showmanship. A class act like no other.
Ambrose Aban:
So young and so tender. He brought maturity and elegance to the Olympics. In lavish style, no less. Phelps came to Beijing with the goals that couldn’t have been bigger and margins for error that couldn’t have been smaller. And he scored. One final after another, one world record after another. He touched the wall first, and at times by a 100th of a second faster than his strongest rivals. It was nothing stopping Phelps. There was nobody who could stop him, not even team mates, Aaron Piersol, Ryan Lochte and greatest rivals, Eamon Sullivan and Grant Hackett of Australia or Pieter Van Den Hoogenband of The Neitherlands -- high achievers and world record toppers.
Chris Goodrgide:
Day after day and night after night, we see Phelps working hard and showcasing world class performances at the Water Cube. In a perfect storm of athletic brilliance, Phelps had exceeded great expectations and lived up to all the hypes and the superlatives, putting together the most incredible Olympics ever.
Jefferey Johnson:
It's almost unreal, watching Phelps today, showing off his powerful butterfly in the 400-meter medley relay and even more exciting watching him touched the wall first to let teammate Jason Lezak to finish it off in another explosive ending.
Chris Goodridge:
You know, Phelps is right about one thing, when someone says you can’t do something, it shows that anything is possible. When you put your mind to a certain thing, it can happen. The biggest thing is nothing is impossible. All it takes is an imagination. I couldn't agree more with this boy.
Ambrose Aban:
Phelps has certainly transformed the face of swimming. The Phelps became the face of Beijing. If his big goal was to change the sport of swimming, he has done it. First, he broke Spitz’s mark that stood 36 years and, considering the increased world competition in the sport, was considered unsurpassable until Phelps came along with a wing span three inches longer than his 6-foot-5 body.
George Tyler:
We heard him saying to the reporters when he arrived in Beijing, "you are the ones who are saying it" Phelps didn't promise us 8 gold medals, he said he would do his best to win 8 events. Even as rivals (the Frenchmen and others and even Spitz himself) had taken some shots at him from afar and journalists covering Beijing had tried to get in his head with some comments, he carried himself with class and dignity.
Jefferey Johnson:
For nine long days, Phelps swum his butt off to break world records. He rose to all his events. He gave it his all. And his team mates appreciated that. Everday he walked to the starting block (like the rest of them), adjusted his goggles and cap and stretched before plunging into his lane and swum with all his might...and won all the events he raced. According to Dan Wetzel of Yahoo! Sports today, Phelps "didn’t just have to come to the pool each morning and swim faster than the rest of the world. He had to take the day-in, day-out grind of the competition. These nine days seemed endless, one more challenge after the other, no room for the slightest of slip-ups."
[BEIJING 08]
By Dan Wetzel
Yahoo! Sports
Meanwhile, everyone else ganged up on him. They all wanted to be the one to defeat Michael Phelps, so they geared up in their individual specialties, giving them their best for one day and then letting someone else take a shot at him the next.
“Everyone on the planet is trying to make him work, giving him obstacles,” said Milorad Cavic, the Californian who swam for Serbia. Cavic came closest to defeating him, losing by one hundredth of a second in the 100-meter butterfly and forcing Phelps to make a dramatic and truly most last second of comebacks.
“It’s been nothing but an upward rollercoaster,” Phelps said. “It’s been nothing but fun.”
The truth was Phelps couldn’t lose here. He simply wouldn’t lose here. Couple that duel with Cavic and the wild comeback in the 4x100 free relay, and Phelps didn’t just smash records and cruise to gold, he turned swimming into an edge-of-your-seat, must-watch event.
“The whole things, every race, one after the other from winning by one-hundredth of a second (Saturday) to finishing it off with a world record, it’s the most amazing experience and something I’ll have forever,” Phelps said.
Whether swimming really changes or not isn’t the issue. It was Phelps’ individual genius that was on display here, putting him in the discussion as the greatest Olympian of all time even as his career still has at least one more games to go. When it’s all said and done, he could wind up with 20 gold medals in his career, a haul almost too big to comprehend. That’s Phelps, though, always looking for more, always wondering what else could be accomplished.
By the time Lezak touched the pad here Sunday, the impossible had become possible. Phelps challenged the world, carried the weight of it on his shoulders and now, at last, Spitz’s gold standard was gone. Victory and history in Beijing.
“I’m at a loss for words,” Phelps said.
They gave him another medal, cranked up a final “Star-Spangled Banner” and as he looked over at his mother and sisters in the crowd he finally did something new.
He broke down and cried.
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