Gold Medal

BEIJING - So much history can be decided by fractions of a second in swimming. But never in the history of the sport has so much been at stake with so little time as there was today in the 100-meter butterfly. Michael Phelps should not have won. It looked, from every angle, like he did not win. But somehow, by one-hundredth of a second, he did. In what will almost certainly go down as the most dramatic - and perhaps most controversial - race of Phelps' career, the Rodgers Forge native out-touched Serbia's Milorad Cavic to win his seventh gold medal.

BEIJING - Dara Torres was born on April 15, 1967, two weeks before a blessed event was held in Las Vegas at the Aladdin Hotel, the wedding of singer Elvis Presley and his bride, Priscilla. Dara's father, Eddie Torres, bought the Aladdin (in a partnership with Wayne Newton) 13 years later. By then, his daughter the swim prodigy was a fixture in the expensive pools of Beverly Hills, including the one in the Torres family's sprawling 10-bath home there. He meant a great deal to Dara way back then.

BEIJING - Michael Phelps had that look in his eyes - by now, you know the one - as he stared across the table, eyeballing the competition. The game was 500 Rummy, and because there's a winner and a loser, Phelps' objective was clear: He would obliterate the foe sitting across from him at all costs. There was no way he was about to let his grandma beat him. "Gran, I am out to win," he told her, "whether it's you or anybody else." The opponent doesn't actually matter. Sometimes it's Grandma.

BEIJING - Michael Phelps touched the wall today, looked up at the scoreboard to find his time, then closed his eyes. He winced in pain, needing a moment to collect himself. This one hurt. It also felt pretty darn good. Phelps won his sixth gold medal of the 2008 Olympics, and set his sixth world record in as many events, cruising home in 1 minute, 54.23 seconds to win the 200-meter individual medley. He is now just one gold medal away from matching Mark Spitz's record of seven, set at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich, Germany, and has two events remaining: the 100-meter butterfly and the 400-meter individual medley.

BEIJING - The Games can't help but pass through the set of The Today Show, situated in the heart of the Olympic complex. Of course, it is not merely a happy coincidence. NBC, and its massive, nearly-billion-dollar Olympic infrastructure, starts its broadcast day with Matt, Meredith, Ann and Al, live from Beijing, from the same set that went with them to Athens and Turin and served as a makeshift home in Rockefeller Center while their New York set was being reconstructed for high-definition conversion a couple years ago. On the road with Today is nothing new. Its original host, Dave Garroway, took viewers to Paris and Rome and on board an Air Force B-52.

BEIJING - When Jonathan Horton went to the 2007 gymnastics world championships in Stuttgart, Germany, his mother told him to bring home an all-around medal. "I told her, 'Mom, you're crazy. It's too soon.' When I came to Beijing, my mom told me to just come and have a good time. I told her I was going to win an all-around medal," Horton said. "She looked at me like I was crazy." Horton's achievement at those world championships was almost overlooked because the U.S. women were winning so many medals - including Shawn Johnson's all-around gold.

BEIJING - He was breathing hard. His muscles were screaming. His goggles were full of water and he couldn't see the walls. Michael Phelps was exhausted, and one of his competitors was closing fast. In the stands, his coach looked worried. It didn't matter. Phelps refused to let his historic quest slip away today at the Water Cube, summoning every ounce of energy that he had over the final 25 meters to hold on and win the 200-meter butterfly in a world record time of 1 minute, 52.03 seconds.

BEIJING - It's time we overhauled our language as it concerns Michael Phelps. We can no longer talk about his quest. It's not a chase, it's not a dream, and it's not simply a goal either. Eight gold medals at the Olympics? Let's just start calling it what it is: Phelps' destiny. There's no denying it now: His path is paved in gold. He is going to do it. Phelps of Rodgers Forge is going to leave here with eight golds. He picked up his third of these Games earlier today, winning the 200-meter freestyle in impressive fashion, breaking his own world record by nearly a second and beating the field by so much that he was practically dried off before any of the other swimmers hit the wall.

BEIJING - To win eight gold medals in a single Olympics, Michael Phelps not only needed to be at his personal peak for 10 days, he also needed his teammates to swim their best under intense pressure. That's exactly what happened today at the Water Cube. The U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay team of Phelps, Cullen Jones, Garrett Weber-Gale and Jason Lezak came from behind to win the gold medal, upsetting France. The biggest hero of the day turned out to be Lezak, the American anchor. Lezak trailed France's Alain Bernard, the world-record holder in the 100-meter freestyle, by half a body length when the two swimmers turned from the final wall.

BEIJING - Michael Phelps didn't feel like himself Sunday morning in China. In the ready room, just a few meters from the pool inside the 11,000-seat Water Cube, he sat in silence by himself, listening to music with his head down. Something was amiss. He looked, in every sense of the word, nervous, the rarest of emotions for Phelps. But minutes before the start of the 400-meter individual medley final, something unusual happened. "I started getting these chills up my body," Phelps said.