U.S. phenom Michael Phelps tied Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single Olympics, taking the men's 100-meter butterfly by one hundredth of a second for his seventh swim title Saturday in Beijing.
Halfway through the Aug. 8-24 Games, China maintained a runaway lead on the gold medals table with 26 after five of Saturday's 29 medal events, but the Americans had 48 overall medals, ahead of China's 41.
Phelps was trailing in seventh place halfway through and overtook Serbia's Milorad Cavic with his last stroke to win by 0.01 second in 50.58 seconds -- an Olympic record. Australia's Andrew Lautersetein got the bronze in 51.12.
"Beforehand, Bob (his coach) said it would be good for me if I lost. When he said that I was fired up. I said, 'I'm going to go for it'," Phelps told reporters.
"When I saw the replay, when I did take that extra half stroke I thought that had lost the race.
"But I guess when I took that half stroke that was what I needed. I'm at a loss for words," he added.
The 23-year-old Phelps could break Spitz's record set at the 1972 Olympics if the U.S. wins tomorrow's 400-medley relay, an event the U.S. has won at every Olympics in which it competed since the relay was added in 1960.
Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry, who has already won three silvers in her first tries at the Games, finally improved on that for a gold in the women's 200m backstroke. Coventry touched home in 2:05.24, beating the previous mark of 2:06.09 set by Margaret Hoelzer.
Rebecca Adlington, who had won Britain's first Olympic title in women's swimming since 1960 in the 400m freestyle on Monday, smashed a 19-year-old world record to strike gold in the 800m freestyle. Adlington clocked 8:14.10, chopping 2.12 seconds off the previous best which stood since 1989, the year she was born.
Cesar Cielo Filho captured Brazil's first ever Olympic swimming gold by taking the blue-ribbon event - men's 50m freestyle in 21.30, an Olympic record time.
Cielo couldn't help crying after the race and shed tears again when the Brazilian national anthem was played during the awarding ceremony.
"I'm extremely happy. I was a little nervous before the race but I think that was my best race ever," said the 21-year-old.
Russia's Valeriy Borchin, who served a one-year ban over doping offense between 2005 to 2006, claimed the men's 20km walk title in 1 hour 19 minutes 01 second.
(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2008)