OLYMPICS: MIchael Phelps equals Spitz's Record

Michael Phelps matched fellow American swimmer Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven golds in one Games on Saturday, coming from behind for a fingertip victory.

Phelps was behind Serbia's Milorad Cavic on his final stroke in the 100 metres butterfly but lunged his arms towards the finish to touch the electronic pad a hundredth of a second ahead.

Having again underlined his status as the face of the Beijing 2008 Olympics, Phelps punched the air and screamed in joy as a capacity crowd in the Water Cube rose to its feet to hail him.

"I'm happy and at a loss for words," he said.

The 23-year-old phenomenon now has 13 career golds, four more than anyone else in the 112-year history of the modern Games. As well as Olympic glory, Saturday's win brings him a $1 million bonus from sponsors.

An unfamiliar seventh at the turn, Phelps' second length was one of the comebacks of his career. He clocked a final 50.58 seconds to Cavic's 50.59, the finest margin possible in the pool.

Phelps had thought at halfway he would lose. "I was starting to hurt for the last 10 metres, it was my last individual race and I just wanted to finish as strong as I could," he said.

On Sunday, Phelps can go one better than Spitz in Munich with a chance for an eighth Beijing gold in the 100m medley relay.

Later on Saturday in Beijing, the spotlight shifts to the Bird's Nest athletics venue, where the fastest men on earth face off in the 100m sprint in front of more than 90,000 people.

Russia's Valeriy Borchin made a triumphant entry to the stadium in the morning to take gold in the 20km men's walk.

But it was hard to displace Phelps from the headlines.

Watched in every race by his mother and cheered to his first wins by President George W. Bush, Phelps' success is down to a combination of natural brilliance, total focus, and the perfect swimmer's physique of large torso and long-reaching arms.

Inevitably overshadowed by the American's seemingly endless procession to top of the podium, women swimmers were nonetheless determined not to be outdone in the Water Cube on Saturday

OLYMPICS: LIU CHUNHONG set the world record in weightlifting

BEIJING, Aug. 13 (Xinhua) Chinese strongwoman Liu Chunhong broke three world records to retain her Olympic title in the women's 69kg category on Wednesday at the Beijing Olympics.

Liu, 23, snatched 128kg, which is the first world record created by Chinese at Bejing Games, jerked 158kg, totaling 286kg.

Her coach Ma Wenhui run into the platform and hugged Liu.

"I didn't waste my hard training," Liu said.

Instead of an one-to-one battle between Liu Chunhong and Russian lifter Oxana Slivenko as predicted, Wednesday's event turned out to be a perfect one-person show of the Chinese woman Hercules at the Beijing University Aeronautics and Astronautic gymnasium.

Ma, Chinese women's weightlifting team coach, said before the event that it would be an intense competition and Liu may have to break the world record to be the winner.

Although Slivenko finished the snatch session with a disappointing 115kg, eight kilos less than her own world record while Liu easily snatched 120kg in her first attempt, the defending champion seemed to have her mind set on getting the records back.

She succeeded the second attempt of 125kg, bettering the previous score by two kilos, and she shattered the minute-old mark with a lift of 128kg in the third.

Slivenko then jerked 136kg and 140kg, securing the silver medal, and gave up the third attempt.

It's Liu's turn now.

She succeeded in her first attempt for 145kg and then asked a record-breaking 149kg and made a good lift.

The ambitious lifter didn't stop. In her last attempt, she jerked 158kg and totaled 286kg, rewriting the world record of jerk, previously owned by Russian Zarema Kasaeva, as well as the total, which was newly set by herself.

"The opponent was not as strong as we had imagined, however, I just concentrated on my own performance," Liu said.