Beijing: Michael Phelps became the greatest Olympian of all time on Wednesday winning two gold medals in the space of an hour to lift his career total to an unprecedented 11 on his charge to Olympic immortality.
As world records continued to tumble in the pool, Phelps passed the halfway point in his drive to be the first person to win eight golds at one Games when he blitzed the 200m butterfly final and led the US 4x200 freestyle relay team.
The champion American has now won five gold medals in Beijing, all of them in world record time, to go with the six he won in Athens.
In a stunning performance in the butterfly final, Phelps was barely able to see as his goggles filled with water.
"It just kept getting worse and worse through the race and I was having trouble seeing the walls to be honest. I wanted to go 1:51 or better but for the circumstances I guess it's not too bad."
Phelps had to settle for 1min 52.03sec while his relay team slashed 4.48sec off their record setting a new time of 6:58.56.
No other athlete has won more than nine career gold medals in the history of the Olympics, and Phelps is confident of meeting his next target of beating Mark Spitz's record of seven golds in one Games.
"From now on it's just a downward slope. The end is close, I love it," he said with the 200m individual medley, 100m butterfly and 4x100m medley relay to come.
Six world records were broken at the pool on Wednesday with the 100m freestyle record broken twice in successive semi-finals by Frenchman Alain Bernard and his Australian rival Eamon Sullivan.
Bernard first regained the record he lost in the 4x100m free relay and Sullivan lowered it to 47.05sec a few minutes later.
Italy's Federica Pellegrini broke the women's 200m freestyle world record with a new mark of 1min 54.82 wearing two swimsuits "to avoid problems and showing myself naked" if the skintight outer racing suit split.
Australia's Stephanie Rice completed her Olympic medley double with victory in the 200m final in a world record 2:08.45 to follow the 400m medley title she won earlier in the week, also in world record time.
China head the medal table with 17 gold, followed by the United States (10), South Korea (five) and Germany, Australia and Italy (four).
The Games hosts pipped the United States in a controversial end to the women's team gymnastics where the US blamed stadium officials for distracting Alicia Sacramone who fell off the balance beam.
Accusations of bias towards Chinese flared at the shooting and boxing venues.
Australian shooter Russell Mark claimed bronze medallist Hu Binyuan was awarded one hit when he missed the target, and the British boxing team questioned the scoring when Gu Yu beat Joe Murray.
World champions Wang Feng and Qin Kai won the men's synchronised 3m springboard title as China went four-from-four in diving.
On the tennis courts, Spain's Rafael Nadal muscled his way into the quarter-finals and a clash with Jurgen Melzer when he put away Russian Igor Andreev 6-4, 6-2.
Switzerland's reigning world champion Fabian Cancellara won the men's cycling time trial to add the Olympic gold to the road race bronze he won on Saturday.
The women's race went to Kristin Armstrong with 49-year-old French great Jeannie Longo denied the dream finish she wanted finishing fourth a mere 1.3 sec behind bronze medallist Karin Thurig of Switzerland.
Far from the conflict in the Caucasus, the Russian and Georgian women's beach volleyballers embraced before the start of their match but the atmosphere was decidely bitter when Georgia won 2-1.
Russia's Alexandra Shiryaeva called Georgia "stupid to start a war" and teammate Natalia Uryadove referred to the naturalised Georgians as Brazilians, the country where they were born.
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