Where were you tonight?

Yesterday, Michael Phelps' seventh gold medal arrived after arguably the most amazing finish of any race in history. Behind nearly an entire meter, he takes an extra stroke in the last second of the men's 100-meter butterfly to beat out Milorad Cavic from Serbia by .01 seconds - that's a hundreth of a second. To put it in perspective, the time in between Phelps' touch at the end of the pool and Cavic's is less than one-third the amount of time that a single frame is displayed in a typical movie. Wow. Phelps joined Mark Spitz as the only other Olympian to reach seven gold medals in a single olympic games.

Tonight's finish, although more "in the bank" - considering the Americans have never lost the 4x100m men's medley in 20+ years - was no less riveting. There was a short period during the second teammate's run performing the breastroke that it would be a photo finish - again, however Phelps built a terrific lead in the third leg, with his signature butterfly, to give Jason Lezak the steam and space he needed - clean water et al - to bring home an elite-eighth Beijing gold medal with 100 historic meters performing the freestyle. Yes, Phelps stands alone as the only Olympian ever to get 8 gold medals at a single Olympic games. He had already stood alone when he broke the 9-medal record for lifetime gold medals (he won 2 golds that day, by the way) and now he will only continue to push the bar higher and higher.

Rachel and I watched the finals on our older, 19" TV in the guest bedroom. In case you are wondering why I wasn't watching it on our 120" image from our projector, I have a good answer. Prior to picking up on the Olympics, I had been watching the very remarkable Saddleback Presidential Forum, hosted by Rick Warren, with Senators McCain and Obama. For some reason, the cable connection in my living room was not broadcasting CNN, so I was forced to watch this event on the smaller TV. Well, it didn't matter - my heart raced and somehow I felt the gravity of the event, just as much as if I had watched it on a Jumbotron. That seems to be the closest I've ever witnessed to "super-human". Certainly Phelps will somehow get his named turned into an adjective, adverb, verb, noun, etc referring to a feat beyond comprehension. Now wasn't that a phelpsian post?

In Him,
David