This Sunday, August 17, 2008, sports journalists from around the world met in the incredible Water Cube in Beijing to witness a feat like no two per century. Michael Phelps, 23, wants to take the record of Mark Spitz, the legend of world swimming. In 1972, the Californian swimmer had collected seven gold medals at the same Olympiad in Munich. Thirty-two years later, his only consolation prize was to see another American, from Baltimore, take up the torch.
On paper, the challenge seems gigantic, mythological. We know …
