BEIJING - Michael Phelps matched fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven golds in one Games on Saturday, coming from behind for a fingertip victory.
Phelps was behind Serbia's Milorad Cavic on his final stroke in the 100 metres butterfly but lunged his arms towards the finish to touch the electronic pad a hundredth of a second ahead.
Having again underlined his status as the face of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, Phelps punched the air and screamed in joy as a capacity crowd in the Water Cube rose to its feet to hail him.
"I'm happy and at a loss for words," he said.
The 23-year-old phenomenon now has 13 career golds, four more than anyone else in the 112-year history of the modern Games. As well as Olympic glory, Saturday's win brings him a $1 million bonus from sponsors.
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US swimmer Michael Phelps reacts after winning the men's 100m butterfly swimming final at the National Aquatics Center during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing on August 16, 2008. The victory gave him a seventh gold medal here and equalled Mark Spitz's 1972 record. [Agencies]
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An unfamiliar seventh at the turn, Phelps' second length was one of the comebacks of his career. He clocked a final 50.58 seconds to Cavic's 50.59, the finest margin possible in the pool.
Phelps had thought at halfway he would lose. "I was starting to hurt for the last 10 metres, it was my last individual race and I just wanted to finish as strong as I could," he said.
On Sunday, Phelps can go one better than Spitz in Munich with a chance for an eighth Beijing gold in the 100m medley relay.
Later on Saturday in Beijing, the spotlight shifts to the Bird's Nest athletics venue, where the fastest men on earth face off in the 100m sprint in front of more than 90,000 people.
Russia's Valeriy Borchin made a triumphant entry to the stadium in the morning to take gold in the 20km men's walk.
But it was hard to displace Phelps from the headlines.
Watched in every race by his mother and cheered to his first wins by President George W. Bush, Phelps' success is down to a combination of natural brilliance, total focus, and the perfect swimmer's physique of large torso and long-reaching arms.
Inevitably overshadowed by the American's seemingly endless procession to top of the podium, women swimmers were nonetheless determined not to be outdone in the Water Cube on Saturday.
Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry, who has won three silvers already in Beijing, finally struck gold in the women's 200 metres backstroke, bringing some rare cheer to her troubled homeland.
Whereas Phelps failed to set a new world record on Saturday, despite doing so for his previous six Beijing golds, Coventry achieved that, shaving 0.85 seconds of the previous best.
Britain's Rebecca Adlington also smashed the 19-year-old world record -- she was six months old when American Janet Evans set it -- to take gold in the women's 800 metres freestyle.
BLUE RIBAND RACE
