7th gold and 7th world record wait for Phelps on Saturday

Michael Phelps’s method bears kinship to that format. By registering himself for eight events, and thereby for 17 races in nine days, he was not just setting himself up to take more gold medals that any swimmer before — or specifically more than Mark Spitz’s seven golds at Munich 1972. Phelps has never mentioned that he seeks a record, or eight golds.

Like those storytellers in this ancient land, we know greatness has come to Phelps but we don’t know yet the details of how that greatness will be customised to his feat.

On a day after he set the sixth world record while taking his sixth gold medal (200 m individual medley, 1:54.23), he showed the first signs of fatigue. They asked him why he didn’t show emotion after the victory. I must conserve my physical and emotional energy, he said. It’s a tough race tomorrow.

(This may remain just a factoid but it adds historical context to the race Phelps is enrolled for on Sunday, the 4x100m medley relay. At Athens, after he took gold in 100-m butterfly, and Crocker the silver, Phelps, then 19 years old, declared that he’d cede his berth in the medley relay to Crocker, giving him a chance to get a gold of his own.)

Phelps already has more gold medals than any other Olympian. In his long week at the Beijing Games, he has invited a debate on the possible measures to compare the greats. Is Phelps greater already than Carl Lewis, for instance? Do swimming and athletics even compare? Must he return a gold for four consecutive Olympics to count? Can he be compared to Mark Spitz even?

Susan Casey, a writer with Sports Illustrated who has interacted with Phelps and his support team before and during the Beijing Games, prefers to stay with swimming comparisons. Spitz and Phelps belong...