Hey Nineteen

He did it.  Michael Phelps closed at the end of the men's 4x200-meter men's freestyle swim race with the competition (there really was no competition) behind him.  In addition to winning his fifteenth career Olympic gold medal, he won his nineteenth career Olympic medal over all, breaking the record set by Russian gymnast Larisa Latynina.  

Chuck Klostermann wrote, before the 2004 Athens Olympics, that in a few weeks we'd all be rooting for Michael Phelps, "even though I have yet to find a single person who knows who Michael Phelps is."

I think we all know now. :-)

And he has three races to go in this 2012 Olympiad.  He could win more medals before all is said and done.

And regarding what I said earlier about Ryan Lochte, who opened the 4x200 relay for the Americans . . . I take that back.