SI.com is the league leader in original in-depth coverage of professional, local, college and international sports. And we're updated continuously, delivering the level of rich in-depth coverage Sports Illustrated fans demand, at the speed of CNN. ...
BEIJING -- On a sticky Sunday morning when history and mythology were intertwined, a 23-year-old swimmer with the slack-jawed smile and an acute sense of the moment churned through Lane 4 of the Water Cube and into sports immortality and the common currency of the English language. In rewriting swimming and Olympic history with his eighth gold medal, Michael Phelps was rewriting the dictionary. As backstroker Aaron Peirsol, who started the 4x100 medley relay, would say, "The term Spitzian might be outdated now by the Phelpsian feat." ...
Anytime
