BEIJING: Michael Phelps was blind when he became the Olympics' greatest athlete yesterday - a story that will only add to his growing legend.
He came out of the water after winning the 200m butterfly yelling like a kid: 'I couldn't see anything, I couldn't see a thing.'
He later explained: 'For the last 100m, my goggles pretty much filled up with water. It just kept getting worse and worse through the race and I was having trouble seeing the walls.'
When he finished two-thirds of a second ahead of Hungary's Laszlo Cseh, the 23-year-old American tore off his swim cap and the leaky goggles and slammed them to the pool deck in disgust.
It was a measure of a man bent on perfection.
'I wanted to go 1:51 or better,' he said of his world-record 1min 52:03sec - his seventh mark in his signature event. 'But, in the circumstances, I guess it's not too bad.'
Not too bad? With that win, he could start looking down at swim legend Mark Spitz, US track star Carl Lewis, Soviet gymnast Laryssa Latynina and Finnish runner Paavo Nurmi. They each have nine Olympic golds.
Phelps had 10. That was at 10.21 am.
At 11.19am, he won another gold as part of the 4x200m freestyle relay, so make it 11.
'To be the most decorated Olympian of all time, it just sounds weird saying it,' Phelps said. 'I just keep thinking, 'Wow. The greatest Olympian of all time.' That's a pretty cool title. I'm definitely honoured.'
But the only number that matters, it seems, is eight.
With five gold medals already around his neck at the Beijing Games, can he survive the whiplash required to win three more, breaking Spitz's single-Olympics record of seven?
Everyone around here with wet hair believes the deal is done.
'I think he'll win eight medals,' said Pawel Korzeniowski, who was sixth in the 200m butterfly. 'Everyone says, 'How does he do this?' But still, he does this.'
Andrew Hunter, part of Britain's sixth-place relay team, said: 'Everybody does his best against him and still, you don't have a chance.'
To complete his mission, he has to win a 200m individual medley race in which he is the world record-holder, a 100m butterfly race in which he has been faster than Ian Crocker all year, and a 4x100m medley relay that the Americans have never lost in a non-boycotted Olympics.
He needs none of it, however, to win over the world. That has been done already, Phelps capturing attention this week by being not only great, but goofy.
With his buzz haircut and oversized ears and crooked grin, he looks refreshingly like any other 23-year-old. Once on the pool deck, he acts like one.
He gave the relay team a lead of more than 21/2 seconds and then he really got serious, climbing out of the water to pound the starting block and scream 'Come on! Come on!'.
His buddy Ryan Lochte extended that. Olympic rookie Ricky Berens opened it up to more than 4sec. Anchor Peter Vanderkaay, third in the 200m free, made sure the quartet became the first to go under seven minutes.
Their 6:58.56 was 4.68sec faster than the previous mark, also set by the US men at the 2007 World Championships. Russia were second, five seconds behind.
'It's the funnest thing, being part of a team,' Phelps said.
How can you not love a guy who uses the word 'funnest?'
How can you not love a guy who, at the end of yesterday's press conference, pulled out his Blackberry and read reporters what he considered an important text message from a high school friend.
'Dude, it's ridiculous how many times I have to see your ugly face.'
Phelps smiled and read another text message from the same friend: 'It's time to be the best ever.'
Looking forward to his remaining three events, Phelps noted: 'From now on, it's just a downward slope.
'The end is close, I love it.'
ASSOCIATED PRESS