Beijing, Saturday, August 15, 2008 – Michael Phelps equalled Mark Spitz’s record of seven gold medals at the 1972 Munch Olympics when he won the 100m butterfly in an Olympic record time of 50.58 seconds.

What was remarkable about this win was that Phelps was behind for most of the race and even his now-legendary turn did not see him surface ahead of his competitors as has happened in his other events. Slow motion replays seem to indicate that Cavic made an error of reaching for the wall while under water while Phelps was still pulling a final stroke above water in the final 5cm.

Milorad Cavic was just 0.01sec behind in 50.59sec and the Serbian launched a protest after the finish because he and his coach felt that the electronic timing equipment did not register his touch accurately. Their protest was not successful and Phelps was awarded the gold.