Michael Phelps cast a shadow over the Games once again on Wednesday as the man from Baltimore won two more gold medals, and set two more world records, to take his Beijing tally to five and make it 11 gold medals in his career.

What an athlete this man is. He is renowned as a cool customer, but we noted today that he did not entirely reject the idea that he is the world’s greatest Olympian. That’s a big debate, and one we’ve joined in lustily here at View from the Bird’s Nest, but no one would deny that he’s one of the greatest Olympians and I’m sure he’s about to put a lot more fuel on the fire when he goes for the remaining three golds open to him.

Once again, it’s been hard to divert your eyes from the pool today but for those who did manage to look away for a few minutes it was definitely worthwhile. There was certainly controversy in the football as Nigeria beat the U.S. to reach the quarter-finals.

I haven’t mentioned recently just how well China are doing in the medals table. If you look to the widget on the right you’ll see they are streets ahead in terms of golds. Extraordinary performance and one that should not go unnoted.

I don’t have any quotes of the day or story of the day because tonight we at Reuters are saluting Steve Parry, the former sports editor who died on the eve of the Games. If you like or admire Reuters sports reporting in any way it’s largely down to Steve, who set the standard for us for almost two decades. We all miss him and tonight we’re going to raise a glass to the memory of a great journalist and a fine man.