Michael Phelps Ties Mark Spitz Olympic Record Medal Count

On August 16, 2008, U.S. Olympics Michael Phelps ties Mark Spitz Olympic record medal count in remarkable fashion.

Without a doubt, the biggest storyline of the 2008 Beijing Olympics was that of American swimmer Michael Phelps, who was vying to win a record eight gold medals. At the previous Olympics, he had finished with six gold and two bronze, and now that he had perfected his training regiment and was a little bit older, experts believed it was his year. His expectations were not modest, as anything but a perfect eight-for-eight would be deemed a failure.

In his seventh event, Phelps competed in the 100-meter butterfly. If he won, he would tie fellow American Mark Spitz, who won seven gold medals at the Munich Olympics in 1972. 50 meters into the race, Phelps' quest for perfection was in enormous trouble, as he was in seventh place as they swam to the finish. But Phelps made up an enormous deficit and was neck-and-neck with Serbian swimmer Milorad Cavic as they neared the finish.

With just a few feet to go, Cavic was clearly ahead of Phelps; but he tried to glide to the wall, while Phelps made the crucial decision to attempt a half-stroke. Phelps' maneuver worked and allowed him to close the gap. 

In an unbelievably close finish, both men placed their hands on the wall sensor at almost exactly the same time. 

When both men emerged from the water, they stared at the scoreboard in anticipation, as neither knew who would come away with the gold. The results finally emerged, and the Americans in the crowd cheered ecstatically: Phelps, with a record time of 50.58 seconds, had beaten Cavic by 0.01 seconds.

''I'm really at a loss for words,'' he told reporters. ''I'm excited. I just don't know what to say.''

Serbian swimming officials immediately filed a protest, but they dropped their appeal after seeing the footage of the race. The race was so close that even still pictures of it appeared inconclusive. 

But Olympic officials looked over the material and confirmed that after several reviews, Phelps had indeed won the race.

Cavic described the loss as "devastating," but he tried to assure that he was satisfied in defeat. ''I'm stoked with what happened," he said.

"I'm very, very happy. I don't want to fight this. It is a gold medal at stake. It's a difficult thing to lose, but you have to understand I came into this competition with the goal to win a bronze medal. I went my best time and did better than bronze. I got silver and almost got gold.''

The next day, Phelps completed his mission by winning his eighth gold medal of the Beijing Olympics -- an amazing feat considering that in his second-to-last event, he was just a few hundredths of a second from losing.

Smith Sets World Record

On Oct. 16, 1968, On the morning of 16 October 1968, U.S. athlete Tommie Smith won the 200 meter race in a world-record time of 19.83 seconds, with Australia's Peter Norman second with a time of 20.06 seconds, and the U.S.A's John Carlos in third place with a time of 20.10 seconds.

After the race was completed, the three went to collect their medals at the podium. The two U.S. athletes received their medals shoeless, but wearing black socks, to represent black poverty. Smith wore a black scarf around his neck to represent black pride, Carlos had his tracksuit top unzipped to show solidarity with all blue collar workers in the U.S. and wore a necklace of beads which he described "were for those individuals that were lynched, or killed and that no-one said a prayer for, that were hung and tarred. It was for those thrown off the side of the boats in the middle passage.

All three athletes wore Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) badges after Norman, a critic of Australia's White Australia Policy, expressed empathy with their ideals. Sociologist Harry Edwards, the founder of the OPHR, had urged black athletes to boycott the games; reportedly, the actions of Smith and Carlos on 16 October 1968 were inspired by Edwards' arguments.

Both U.S. athletes intended on bringing black gloves to the event, but Carlos forgot his, leaving them in the Olympic Village. It was the Australian, Peter Norman, who suggested Carlos wear Smith's left-handed glove, this being the reason behind him raising his left hand, as opposed to his right, differing from the traditional Black Power salute. When "The Star-Spangled Banner" played, Smith and Carlos delivered the salute with heads bowed, a gesture, which became front-page news around the world. As they left the podium the crowd booed them. Smith later said, "If I win, I am American, not a black American. But if I did something bad, then they would say I am a Negro. We are black and we are proud of being black. Black America will understand what we did tonight.”

International Olympic Committee (IOC) president, Avery Brundage, deemed it to be a domestic political statement, unfit for the apolitical, international forum the Olympic Games were supposed to be. In an immediate response to their actions, he ordered Smith and Carlos suspended from the U.S. team and banned from the Olympic Village. When the US Olympic Committee refused, Brundage threatened to ban the entire US track team. This threat led to the two athletes being expelled from the Games.

A spokesman for the IOC said it was "a deliberate and violent breach of the fundamental principles of the Olympic spirit.^” Brundage, who was president of the United States Olympic Committee in 1936, had made no objections against Nazi salutes during the Berlin Olympics. He argued that the Nazi salute, being a national salute at the time, was acceptable in a competition of nations, while the athletes' salute was not of a nation and therefore unacceptable^.

Brundage had been one of the United States' most prominent Nazi sympathizers even after the outbreak of the Second World War and his removal as president of the IOC had been one of the three stated objectives of the Olympic Project for Human Rights.

As late as 2010, the official IOC website stated "Over and above winning medals, the black American athletes made names for themselves by an act of racial protest

Smith and Carlos were largely ostracized by the U.S. sporting establishment in the following years and, in addition, were subject to criticism of their actions. Time magazine showed the five-ring Olympic logo with the words, "Angrier, Nastier, Uglier", instead of "Faster, Higher, Stronger”.

Back home, they were subject to abuse and they and their families received death threats.

Smith continued in athletics, going on to play in the NFL with the Cincinnati Bengals, before becoming an assistant professor of Physical Education at Oberlin College. In 1995, he went on to help coach the U.S. team at the World Indoor Championships at Barcelona. In 1999 he was awarded the California Black Sportsman of the Millennium Award. He is now a public speaker.

Carlos' career followed a similar path to Smith's. He initially continued in athletics, equaling the 100-yard dash world record the following year. Later, he played in the NFL with the Philadelphia Eagles, before a knee injury prematurely ended his career. He fell upon hard times in the late 1970s and, in 1977, his ex-wife committed suicide, leading him to a period of depression. In 1982, Carlos was employed by the Organizing Committee for the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles to promote the games and act as liaison with the city's black community. In 1985, he became a track and field coach at Palm Springs High School, a post he still holds.

Norman, who was sympathetic to his competitors' protest, was reprimanded by his country's Olympic authorities and ostracized by the Australian media. He was not picked for the 1972 Summer Olympics, despite finishing third in his trials. Smith and Carlos were pallbearers at his funeral after his death in 2006^.

In 2005, San Jose State University honored former students Smith and Carlos with a 22-foot high statue of their protest, created by artist Rigo 23^. A student, Erik Grotz, initiated the project: "One of my professors was talking about unsung heroes and he mentioned Tommie Smith and John Carlos. He said these men had done a courageous thing to advance civil rights, and, yet, they had never been honored by their own school." In January 2007, History San Jose opened a new exhibit called Speed City: From Civil Rights to Black Power, covering the San Jose State athletic program "from which many student athletes became globally recognized figures as the Civil Rights and Black Power movements reshaped American society."

On March 3, 2008, in the Detroit Free Press editorial section, an editorial by Orin Starn entitled "Bottom line turns to hollow gold for today's Olympians" lamented the lack of social engagement of modern sports athletes, in contrast to Smith and Carlos.

Smith and Carlos received an Arthur Ashe Courage Award at the 2008 ESPY Awards honoring their action.

Internationally, in a 2011 speech to the University of Guelph, Akaash Maharaj, a member of the Canadian Olympic Committee and head of Canada's Olympic Equestrian team, said, "In that moment, Tommie Smith, Peter Norman, and John Carlos became the living embodiments of Olympic idealism. Ever since, they have been inspirations to generations of athletes like myself, who can only aspire to their example of putting principle before personal interest. It was their misfortune to be far greater human beings than the leaders of the IOC of the day."

Sydney Olympics Kick Off

On Sep. 16, 2000, the opening ceremonies were held for the twenty-seventh Summer Olympic Games.  

The Games took place in Sydney, Australia marking just the second time the Summer Games were held in the Southern Hemisphere.

The United States would finish the Olympics atop the medal standings with a total of 94, as well as the most golds of any nation with 37.  

The host country, Australia, finished in a tie for third with China for total medals with 58 and finished fourth with 16 gold medals in the most successful Olympics for the nation.  

Marion Jones of the United States, who won three golds and two bronze medals, gave them all back in 2007 after confessing that she had taken tetrahydrogestrinone (THG), a substance that is banned by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

The IOC officially stripped Jones and her relay teammates of their medals shortly after her confession, however, her teammates were given an opportunity to appeal the decision.  

Jones’ teammates would eventually have their medals reinstated, while Jones was disgraced and would later spend six months in prison for lying to federal agents.