Michael Phelps

Phelps kicks off golden journey - 2008 Beijing Olympic Games : "It was his seventh career Olympic gold medal and his ninth Olympic medal overall."

Michael Phelps is in a class of his own like Ian Thorpe and it's a great pity the two of them couldn't be in the pool together to really give each other a real run for their money. Would've been awesome. Can't dwell on that , though. It's great to see the games showing up the real heights we can achieve but I hope Michael Phelps will be able to weather this run at the top. It's hard on outstanding athletes. They constantly have to come up with the goods and they constantly have to be awesomely perfect. Like Ian Thorpe he makes it all look so easy but there will be hours of dedicated training and professionalism behind these successes. It'll be lovely to see him live his dream.