To win one Olympic gold medal is the stuff of dreams. To win eight at the same Games defies logic.
Yet in 2008, swimming superstar Michael Phelps pulled off the seemingly impossible, winning eight golds in Beijing to surpass Mark Spitz’s seven-medal effort in 1972.
Five of Phelps’s medals came in individual events, tying a record set in 1980.
“I put them all on for the first time this morning,” Phelps told CNN shortly after his historic haul.
“They felt pretty heavy around my neck, so it was a little hard to hold my neck up straight.
“But I mean, I can’t say it enough: it was an unforgettable experience.”
Watch Phelps’s 2008 interview with CNN World Sport at the top of the page.
