Sports
Phelps Creates Olympic History Cops 11 Gold Medals
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Aug 13, 2008, 9:21

US swimmer Michael Phelps broke the record for Olympic gold medals won by taking his 10th and 11th in a double victory today.

Phelps, 23, won his fourth gold of the Beijing Olympics and 10th of all time with victory in the 200m butterfly.

And he claimed yet another gold as part of the US 4x200m freestyle team.

Phelps has now surpassed the nine golds won by Paavo Nurmi, Carl Lewis, Mark Spitz and Larysa Latynina to cement his place in Olympic history.

He is also bidding to beat Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single Olympic games and has moved to within three of that achievement.

The US star came a step closer to gold number six when he eased through to the semi-finals of the 200m individual medley, winning his heat in a time of one minute 58.65secs.

He has the 100m butterfly and the 4x100m medley relay later in the week.

Phelps began proceedings in the Water Cube today in typical fashion, beating Hungary's Laszlo Cseh and Japan's Takeshi Matsuda in a world record time of 1:52.03 to claim 200m butterfly gold.