Crazy Eights

Eight is said to be a lucky number in China. The Olympics started at 8:08 PM on 8.8.08. But for Michael Phelps eight means history. Eight means breaking the record for the most gold medals won in a single Olympic games. Eight means mission accomplished. Phelps came into these games with a mission, a dream. That was to break Mark Spitz’s 36 year-old record of most gold medals in a single games.

Read more of this post

What to Watch For: Day 8

I’m pretty spent after a five-hour drive, so I’m gonna keep this one brief. NBC’s primetime coverage starts out with the women’s marathon. American Deena Kastor won bronze in Athens, and will be going for gold on a hazy day in Beijing. Also, the men’s 100m final will be shown on tape delay after this morning’s (ET) race yielded the “World’s Fastest Man.” Then we head over to the Water Cube for the final act of the Michael Phelps show. In the men’s 4x100m medley relay (10:58 PM ET) Phelps swims for his eighth and final Beijing gold medal. If victorious, he surpasses the single-Games record set by fellow American Mark Spitz in 1972. Before that, we get to watch Supermom Dara Torres in the women’s 50m freestyle final (10:03 PM ET). The 41 year-old has never won an individual gold medal, but is looking good after last night’s impressive semifinal swim which left her atop the field. At 10:09 PM ET is the grueling men’s 1500m freestyle, where American Larsen Jensen will go for gold. Jensen got silver 4 years ago in Athens, being beaten out by Australian Grant Hackett, the two-time defending Olympic gold medalist in and world record holder in the race. Hackett will also be swimming tonight. At 10:40 PM ET, the U.S. women will go for gold in the women’s 4x100m medley relay, where they will face off against a talented group of Australian swimmers. An entertaining slate of events, capped off by the greatest Olympic champion going for history.

Lucky Number Seven

Indeed gold medal number seven was the luckiest of them all. Beyond lucky. In fact, it seemed that some power from above was on Phelps’ side as he swam the last few meters of tonight’s 100m butterfly final. If you didn’t see it (and had the opportunity to see it), well then please just leave this blog because you really aren’t a sports fan. When Jason Lezak chased down France’s big mouth Alain Bernard in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay to give the Americans the gold by .08 seconds I thought I had seen it all. I hadn’t.

Read more of this post