American star Michael Phelps smashed his own world record as he won the 400 metres individual medley in Beijing this morning to kick-start his bid for a record eight golds at this year's Olympics. Phelps took 1.41 secs off his old mark of 4:05.25 to finish in 4:03.84, the eighth time he has broken the 400m medley world record.
It was his seventh career Olympic gold medal and his ninth Olympic medal overall.
Laszlo Cseh of Hungary took silver in 4:06.16 with Ryan Lochte of the United States finishing with the bronze in 4:08.16.
"I wanted to go 4.03, I didn't know if I would," Phelps said following the race.
"To be honest, I didn't really feel that great.
"And going into the ready room I started getting these kind of like these chills up my body.
"And right then and there I knew I was starting to get more excited."
"I was pretty emotional after that race and I'm pretty excited to have the first one under my belt."
Phelps responded to the challenge of countryman Ryan Lochte in the second 50m of the breaststroke and was never headed from there.
"I wasn't comfortable after the first 200, after seeing everybody so close together.
"It's usually not how it is after the first 200, that's usually the 300 mark.
"I think it made my breaststroke a lot stronger, and at that point, coming home on freestyle it's all adrenaline."
Said Lochte: "It was all over by the freestyle."
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