Glorious Olympian

Thursday, Aug. 14, 2008 | 2:04 a.m.

Becoming a member of your country’s Olympic contingent is an awesome athletic accomplishment. Winning a gold medal is spectacular, an achievement to be forever etched in the record books. Becoming the winningest gold medalist in the century-plus history of the modern Olympics is simply out of this world.

“He is just another person, but maybe from a different planet,” Russian Olympic swimmer Alexander Sukhorukov told the Associated Press on Wednesday.

“He,” of course, is Michael Phelps, the American Olympian from Baltimore whose phenomenal performance — five gold medals so far — at the Beijing Games is generating comparisons to a superhero with unearthly talents.

In an interview a year ago with the Houston Chronicle, even Mark Spitz made the comparison, saying, “Somebody asked me what I would think if he (Phelps) won seven gold medals, and I said, ‘It would be like the second man on the moon.’ Then the interviewer asked, ‘What if he wins eight?’ and I said, ‘First man on Mars.’ ”

That’s some compliment from the man who to date has been the world’s most legendary Olympic swimmer, having won two golds at the 1968 Mexico City Games and seven (!) golds at the 1972 Munich Games. Until Wednesday, Spitz was tied with three other Olympians for winning the most golds.

But Phelps broke that shared record of nine golds Wednesday by winning the 200-meter butterfly for his fourth gold in Beijing and 10th altogether, including the six he won four years ago at the Athens Games.

And then, incredibly, Phelps won his 11th total gold two hours later as part of the U.S. 800 freestyle relay team.

He has three more events at the Beijing Games. Will he break Spitz’s record of seven golds in one Olympics? Now that’s excitement.

The 23-year-old Phelps is a joy to watch as he displays his individual talents and roots for his teammates. Seeing such hard work and talent pay off is what Olympic competition is all about.