BEIJING, Aug 17 (Agencies): Swimmer Michael Phelps went Sunday where no one has been before to win a record eighth gold at one Olympics and surpass Mark Spitz's famous 1972 feat.
The American stole the limelight even from Jamaican Usain Bolt's audaciously brilliant 100m win in the athletics showpiece that has been the Beijing Games' other defining moment so far.
On an unhappier note, American shooter Matt Emmons threw away gold for a second successive Games with a misfire on his final shot. He did the same four years ago in Athens by firing at the wrong target.
Phelps (23) held his arms aloft and hugged team mates after a relatively easy men's 4x100 meters medley relay win, unlike the finger-tip finishes in two of his earlier Beijing golds.
Phelps' 14th career gold, after six in Athens, took him past fellow American Spitz's seven at one Games in Munich. He has five more than anyone else in the Olympics' 112-year history.
Jamaican Usain Bolt broke his own 100-meter world record Saturday with a dazzling 9.69-second display of speed and showmanship.
Pure speed. It emanated from those loping, waist-high strides 6-foot-5 Bolt churned with his golden spikes - untied lace and all - to win the 100-meter Olympic gold medal and break his own world record Saturday night.
Meanwhile, Rafael Nadal has won a gold medal in Olympic tennis by beating Fernando Gonzalez of Chile 6-3, 7-6 (2), 6-3 in the final of men's singles.
Nadal overcame two set points in the second set and held every service game Sunday.
Despite the swimmer's heroics, the US team is struggling to keep pace with China at the top of the medals table. With more than seven days to go, the hosts lead by 31 golds to 18, and are already within touching distance of their Athens haul of 32.
It has also been a fantastic weekend for the 2012 hosts, on the water and on two wheels.
Britain have scored eight gold medals in two days in cycling, rowing, sailing and the pool, taking them to 11 golds and third place in the medals table.
Sunday, day nine, was the busiest of the August 8-24 Games, with 34 golds on offer. It began with a triumph for Romania in one of the Olympics' most grueling events.
Constantina Tomescu had time to relax and wave as she entered the Bird's Nest stadium to claim a surprise win in the women's marathon that began in Tiananmen Square.
In the highest-profile doping case of the Games, Greece's defending women's 400 meters hurdles champion Fani Halkia failed a drug test hours before she was to compete.
The furious chief of Greece's Olympic Committee told Reuters the "golden girl" of the Athens Games should have stayed home instead of dragging the country's name through the mud.
"If you want to commit suicide it is up to you, but you do not have the right to kill your country," Minos Kyriakou said.
