After winning six gold and two bronze medals at the 2004 Athens Olympics, Phelps resumed his pursuit of Spitz's record in Beijing. At last year's world championships in Australia, he provided a tantalizing glimpse of what was to come by going seven-for-seven, beating several world records by absurdly large margins in a sport measured to the hundredth of a second.

Then again, the capricious nature of his pursuit also was exposed Down Under. He never got a chance to swim his final event — a relay the Americans were heavily favored to win — because a teammate got disqualified in the morning preliminaries while Phelps was resting up back at his hotel for the evening final.

With that in mind, no less an expert than Ian Thorpe predicted Phelps would win six or seven golds in China, but figured eight was probably beyond reach. There was so much that could go wrong, from another teammate messing up to a rival swimming the race of his life at just the right time.

"It's not at all because I thought Michael was incapable of doing it," the Thorpedo said. "There were just so many other factors that were going to influence the results rather than it just being Michael."

But all the stars aligned during nine magical days in Beijing.

The Americans looked beaten by the French in the 400 freestyle relay, but world record-holder Alain Bernard made a tactical mistake off the final flip. Jason Lezak was able to draft like a NASCAR racer and pull off the fastest relay leg ever, winning by eight-hundredths of a second.

Phelps appeared hopelessly behind in his final individual event, the 100 butterfly, but Milorad Cavic started his glide to the wall a little too soon and subtly lifted his head, which slowed him even more. Phelps, realizing he was behind, took an extra half-stroke and slammed the wall a hundredth of a second ahead — the smallest possible margin.

"I haven't been able to think in great detail about everything that's happened and what I've done," Phelps said. "Once I start getting back in the water and things settle down, I think I'll be able to look back on things and remember everything that happened and really be able to think about it and ponder it."

Looking ahead, Phelps will likely focus on three or four individual events, plus the relays. That would give him a chance to close his Olympic career with an even 20 gold medals.

Not too shabby.

"Anything he does from here on out is gravy," Bowman said. "He's earned the right to do it any way he wants to do it."

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