KEY POINTS:
It is probably now safe to say that the kids at school who bullied Michael Fred Phelps for having big ears did not have the last laugh.
Two more golden swims at these Games yesterday, in two more world record times, took Phelps' tally of both
gold medals and record winning times here to five.
And in reaching a career total of 11 Olympic gold medals - he won six in Athens in 2004 - the American has cemented his place as a swimmer, and sportsman, for the ages.
Nobody else has ever won more than nine golds, in any sport.
Phelps went two better yesterday by triumphing in the 200 metres butterfly and then as the pacesetter in the 4x200m freestyle relay.
The 23-year-old "Baltimore Bullet" has overtaken Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz, the Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi and the Soviet gymnast Larysa Latynina, who all got close to double figures, but not quite there.
Phelps is now on a completely different plane to anyone else. And up there, as a contender at least, for the title of greatest Olympian of all time.
He has not finished yet. Assuming no random ill fate befalls the 6ft 4in Marylander, he will go for a sixth gold medal tomorrow in the 200m individual medley.
And he will win it. Then on Saturday, in what will be his toughest test, he will go for gold No 7. That will be in the 100m butterfly, where his compatriot Ian Crocker - the world record holder over the distance - will provide a stiff challenge.
There could be fireworks.
If Phelps has already won a sixth gold before that butterfly race begins, then Saturday morning will be a million-dollar swim, literally.
Phelps' swimsuit-maker, Speedo, long ago offered him a US$1m ($1.4m) bonus if he could win seven or more golds in one Olympic Games.
All that any observer here can say is that he looks a million bucks. Yet even a magnificent seven is not really what Phelps wants.
Eight would be truly great, and if tomorrow and Saturday are negotiated as planned, then the final action in the Water Cube pool will provide Phelps with the chance to annexe himself another little chunk of history.
Spitz's seven gold swimming medals at one Games remains, for now, the record.
And what a record it is. Spitz clocked world records in every gold-winning race.
But if Phelps can maintain the extraordinary level of performance he has already shown, anything is possible.
It is not just his lugholes that set him apart. Nor that unusually long torso and relatively short legs, which provide less resistance in the water. His freakish physical genius is matched by an application to his work n race, eat, sleep, repeat - so rigidly focused that it borders on the afflicted.
He won the 200m butterfly yesterday in a world record 1min 52.03sec, despite his goggles filling up with water so he could not see. Water blindness could not prevent him bettering his own record by 0.06 seconds.
"I had difficulty seeing the walls," he said. "I wanted a world record. I wanted a 1min 51seconds or better but under the circumstances, it's not a bad result."
Not bad, Mike. Better next time, eh?
Of his achievement of 11 career golds, Phelps said: "I'm almost at a loss for words.
"To be the most decorated Olympian of all time, it just sounds weird. I am speechless. It started to sink in after the butterfly. I was trying to focus on my next race, but I kept thinking 'Wow. Greatest Olympian of all time.'
"It's a pretty neat title and I'm definitely honoured. An Olympic gold medal stays with you for ever. It never gets old, listening to your national anthem with a gold medal around your neck."
Three more times he could hear it in China. If he does then a 14-9 supremacy over his closest rivals in the race for Olympic golds would be quite incredible.
To put that in some context, the 11 Games golds Phelps has won already since 2004 comprehensively outdoes the six that Britain as a nation has won in the pool in the last 70 years.
- INDEPENDENT
