Phelps crowned in the 100-m butterfly...

Phelps surpassed Milorad Cavic of Serbia by a hundredth of a second in the 100-meter butterfly. He has one more event left to usurp Mark Spitz and stand alone with eight golds in a single games.

"I was starting to hurt a little bit with probably the last 10 meters," Phelps said after winning the 100 butterfly in 50.58 seconds. "That was my last individual race, so I was just trying to finish as strong as I could."

"I actually thought when I did take that half-stroke, I thought I lost the race there, but I guess that was the difference in the race," said Phelps, who set an Olympic record but failed for the first time to win a gold medal in Beijing with a world record.

The finish was so close the Serbs filed a protest. Swimming's governing body had to review the tape down to the 10-thousandth of a second, and the Serb delegation finally conceded that Phelps won after checking the tape.

"It goes to show you that not only is this guy the greatest swimmer of all time and the greatest Olympian of all time, he's maybe the greatest athlete of all time," Spitz said in a telephone interview from Detroit. "He's the greatest racer who ever walked the planet."

Andrew Lauterstein of Australia won the bronze medal in 51.12, and world record-holder Ian Crocker was again denied the first individual gold of his career.