Six races, six world records and six gold medals: there really is no stopping Michael Phelps at these Games.

The man from Baltimore finished over a second ahead of his closest rival, Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh, in the men’s 200 metres individual medley on Friday to close to within one of Mark Spitz’s record of seven golds at the 1972 Olympics in Munich. Ryan Lochte, pictured above, was third.

Phelps is targeting eight golds in Beijing and who would now bet against him?

Continuing the theme of Phelps becoming an independent sovereign nation (see yesterday’s post) this latest success would be enough to put him level in the medals table with South Korea and Italy (if you include the relays) and behind only China, the U.S. and Germany.

Not bad for one man and his goggles.

Michael Phelps and the swimming have been great, I’ve really enjoyed the beach volleyball, the Greco-Roman wrestling has been interesting and I’ve even watched the archery.

All in all, the last six days have been a really good warm up, but now I’m ready for the real action, which it does on the track in the Bird’s Nest Stadium on Friday morning.

Athletics, for all its problems, remains the heart and soul of the Olympics and the men’s 100 metres is the heart and soul of athletics.

Memories of the voice of former BBC commentator David Coleman calmly, authoritatively and almost whispering: “The Olympic 100 metre final” as the eight men make their final fidgets signal a flashback to that overwhelming excitement of expectation no other sporting event could match.

Being there, two metres from the track, bang on the finish line, is something else.

The race takes less than 10 seconds yet produces millions of printed words, untold hours of TV and years of discussions and arguments.

Over the next 10 days, in front of 91,000 people and hundreds of millions of TV viewers, dozens more great stories of human endeavour will captivate the world as the Olympic motto of “Higher, faster, stronger” is made real.

Thanks to all you bit-part players but it’s time to leave the stage.

Let the real Games begin.

What do all those athletes get up to in the Village once the competition is over?

Is Michael Phelps the most marketable athlete in the world?

And can Julian Linden speak a bit more clearly, please?

I’m joined by Julian, Mitch Phillips, Nick Mulvenney and Belinda Goldsmith to discuss the smouldering issues of the day.

Click here to listen to yesterday’s podcast and please feel free to leave your comments, criticisms and come-off-its below.

This is a long shot, I know, but if Michael Phelps suddenly decided to break away from the United States and declare himself a sovereign nation, he’d currently be joint-fourth in the medals table at the Olympics — level with the U.S.

A glance to the right of this blog will show China leading with 20 golds and the U.S. second on 10. Phelps has won, or helped win five of those and with three more in his sights over the last few days of the swimming he could take his personal tally to eight.

That would put him out on his own in second.

Phelps, of course, would have to re-swim the relay races, completing each leg himself, but the way he’s going at the moment you wouldn’t put anything past him.

It’d be interesting to hear what he’d go for as a national anthem. How about some of the hip-hop he listens to all the time? A bit of Young Jeezy would liven up the medals ceremonies quite a bit…

(With a large tip of the hat to Karolos Grohmann, sat here next to me)

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.

Gary Hershorn writes: Underwater photography is a tricky thing to get right but Germany-based photographer Wolfgang Rattay has perfected the art of making dramatic images from a most unusual angle.

Today’s photo of Michael Phelps winning his 10th all-time gold medal (the 11th came later) was perfect in its beauty and painting like feel. The image captured Phelps in the lead and on his way to gold.

Original caption: Michael Phelps (C) of the U.S. swims to a world record and gold medal next to Nikolay Skvortsov (R) of Russia and Takeshi Matsuda (L) of Japan in the men’s 200 meters butterfly final at the National Aquatics Center during the Beijing 2008 Olympics August 13, 2008. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

Gary Hershorn is news Editor, Reuters Pictures, America. For a selection of other great Reuters pix from the Games click here. For the previous day’s chosen picture click here.

Where do athletes go after they’ve outgrown the pantheon?

Just who is the Marine Biologist from Baltimore?

And who was responsible for a piece of writing variously described as the worst piece of publishing ever, the worst article ever written and being based on a stupid premise?

Click play on the podcast above to find out the answers to all these questions and more, as I’m joined by Mitch Phillips, Padraic Halpin, Simon Evans and the world’s loudest Australian, Julian Linden.

Feel free to send us your thoughts in the comments, or check out yesterday’s podcast here.

Poor Laszlo Cseh, the Hungarian who twice in these Games has finished second to Michael Phelps, was quite frank when asked by a reporter whether he had thought, during Wednesday’s 200m butterfly that he could actually beat Michael Phelps.

“It never even crossed my mind,” he said.

That should tell you everything about how much better Phelps is than his rivals — they know they are swimming for silver medal at best and that can’t be much fun.

A Hungarian reporter told me that Cseh had spent two months deep down in the dumps after last year’s world championships when he realised how unstoppable Phelps was and that all his work was targeted towards trying to be the next best.

The Russian team, who on Wednesday finished second in the 4×200 freestyle relay to the Phelps-led U.S squad, were a likeable bunch of lads who were beaming at the post-race press conference, as if they had actually won gold.

When they were asked about how they rated Phelps, all four of them laughed. “He may be human but he’s from a different planet,” said Alexander Sukhorukov.

Phelps insisted he wasn’t unbeatable but watching him leave the fastest swimmers in the world in his wake throughout this week it really is hard to picture him fighting for second best.

Statistically, in terms of gold medals, Phelps is now the most decorated Olympian of all-time.

Whether or not he is the greatest Olympian of all time (join the debate here) it is hard to think of any other athlete who has so utterly dominated his opponents in so many events as Phelps.

He has simply turned the rest of the field into also-rans — and yet, like Laszlo Cseh — still they try.

For a factbox on Michael Phelps click here. This piece by Crispian Balmer on the Phelps phenomenon is also an excellent read.

Michael Phelps made light of goggle trouble to claim his fourth gold medal of the Games and then helped his American team win the 4 x 100 m freestyle and make it five wins from five, in fact five world records from five, at these Games.

He now has 11 Olympic gold medals, which puts clear blue water between him and four athletes who have won nine.

He is still on course to break the old record of seven golds at one Games, held by Mark Spitz, after what were two more breathtaking swims on Wednesday.

Victory in the butterfly came despite the fact that goggle trouble was making it difficult for him to see.

“My goggles filled up with water all the time and I had difficulty seeing the walls,” he told reporters.

He shaved 0.06 seconds off the world record in that race but that was nothing to the time he and his team mates posted in the relay. Phelps, Ryan Lochte, Ricky Berens and Peter Vanderkaay carved 4.68 seconds off the world record to win the gold in 6:58.56 with Russia a distant second and Australia third.

The greatest Olympian of all time? Have your say here…

PHOTO: Michael Phelps of the U.S reacts after winning the men’s 200 meters butterfly swimming final at the National Aquatics Center during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games August 13, 2008. REUTERS/Wolfgang Rattay

NOTE: This post was updated after Phelps’s second gold medal of the day

Michael Phelps made the headlines once again – most of them including the word “pantheon” — as he made it three gold medals and three world records from three finals so far.

The American now has nine career Olympic gold medals to his name and will almost certainly break the record he now shares with four other athletes when he swims in two finals tomorrow.

Phelps’s achievement is extraordinary, and has set the Games alight, but to my mind there was greater excitement away from the Water Cube on day four.

The best action came during a terrific struggle in the basketball, with heavily-fancied Spain coming from behind to beat China in an overtime thriller. Perhaps Spain are trying to lull the U.S. into a false sense of security.

There were other good stories away from the pool. Togo won their first medal, in kayaking, while a Texan hunter, Walton Eller, beat an Italian policeman in the men’s double trap shooting.

There’s a new feature on the blog today. If you look to the right you’ll see a fantastic medals table “widget”. Feel free to add it to your own blog by following the “Get this widget” link.

We did another podcast, mostly about Phelps but with some interesting factoids on the Greco-Roman wrestling, and Mitch Phillips argued that you have to look outside the pool for the greatest Olympian in history. On the frothier side, I particularly enjoyed Al Himmer’s story from the basketball the other night, if only for this headline: “Step away from the crisps, sir.”

Click here to find out what that’s all about and please pop back tomorrow. Remember, comments are open on all stories here on the blog and we love to hear from you.

Kevin Fylan, Beijing