Michael Phelps 8th Gold
Michael Phelps passes Spitz with golden eight
Michael Phelps took a record-breaking eighth gold at one Games on Sunday in Beijing to beat fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz's seven from Munich 1972.
Phelps hugged his team mates in celebration after a comfortable men's 4x100 meters medley relay win contrasting with the finger-tip, split-second finishes that came in two of his earlier Beijing golds.
His 14 golds, which include six in Athens, make him the most successful Olympian of the modern era by a big margin of five.
With Games spectators still agog at Usain Bolt's audaciously brilliant 100m win in the blue riband athletics race on Saturday night, the first gold of Day Nine went to Romania.
Constantina Tomescu had time to relax and wave at the crowd before crossing the finish line in the Bird's Nest stadium after a marathon run that began in Tiananmen Square.
Catherine Ndereba of Kenya took silver and Zhou Chunxiu of China the bronze, with Britain's world record holder Paula Radcliffe struggling for fitness and well back.
In the highest-profile doping case yet of the August 8-24 Games, Greece's defending women's 400 meters hurdles champion Fani Halkia failed a drug test hours before she was to compete.
That recalled the doping sagas that darkened Athens 2004.
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