Olympic Gold Haul
evawhite on August 23rd, 2008
Michael Phelps, the best swimmer the world has seen hauls in 14 Gold’s, 2 Silvers and a Bronze. A mighty haul it is considering it was all in one Olympic! There have been other greats over the years that have accumulated their gold’s over several Olympics. Phelps has shown the whole world what it means to be a great athlete.
Any of you who have watched his participation would have seen his superiority over the competition. There leaves no doubt about his finesse and fantastic ability. The excellent performances of some athletes in this Olympics is like sun shining through the clouds which was all the political wish-wash.
At 23 years he is part of the new generation of super-performers set to shake the world. A winner from early years in his life threw in his net and hit his first gold on 10th August with nothing less than a new swimming world record. He then picked up on the momentum and built on it to win gold’s in final events on the 12th, 13th, 15th while setting new world records. Finishing it off with two more gold’s on the 16th and 17th, setting new Olympic and team records respectively. These are only the eight of the finals. The heats, semi-finals included takes the tally to a staggering six more totalling 14! Tremendous.
We have two Olympic Games in a decade. We are lucky to be part of this day and age to witness this feat.
Phelps beat the best record of 10 gold medals which was set by Raymond Ewry in Olympic track/field in 1900, 1904, 1906, and 1908. The last was a hundred years ago!
The next best is Mark Spitz also a swimmer who won 9 gold’s in the 1972 Munich Olympics. That was 34 years ago!
Carl Lewis at 9 gold’s accumulated in Olympic track/field 1979 to 1996.
Paavo Nurmi 9 gold’s accumulated in Olympics track/field 1920 to 1928. (Eighty years ago!)
Larissa Latynina 9 gold’s from 1956 to 1964 in Olympic gymnastics. Incidentally, she holds the maximum number of medals overall at 18 Olympic medals. Unbeaten for 44 years. Only today Phelps at 17 medals comes close.
It’s great to be part of this day and age to witness grand accomplishments breaking records set decades ago. Who is to say when these records will be broken next? The athletes have broken through all the clouds and hue surrounding the Beijing Olympics and restored the spirit of sport.
