Fifth gold, seventh medal for Michael Phelps

Michael Phelps won his fifth gold medal at the Athens Olympics yesterday to claim a place alongside Mark Spitz as one of the greatest swimmers in Olympic history.

With Spitz watching from the stands, Phelps beat his American team-mate Ian Crocker by just four-hundredths of a second to win his fourth individual gold and his seventh medal overall at the Athens Games.

Spitz won seven golds, four individual, at Munich in 1972 and while Phelps could not match that feat, he is likely to take his tally at Athens to eight medals after today's medley relay final without swimming a stroke.

Another American, Matt Biondi, also won seven swimming medals at Seoul in 1988, but of his five golds only two came in individual events.

Phelps earned the right to swim the butterfly leg after winning the 100 final yesterday but later announced he would give up his spot to Crocker.

Phelps will still earn a medal if the Americans finish in the top three because he swam in the relay heats.

Gary Hall gave the US another gold medal when he successfully defended the 50 freestyle title he won in Sydney four years ago.

The 29-year-old, joint champion with compatriot Anthony Ervin in Sydney, won by the slimmest margin of 0.01 seconds from Croatia's Duje Draganja. Roland Schoeman of South Africa took bronze in 22.02 to complete his set of Athens medals.

Kirsty Coventry won the women's 200 backstroke final to become the first Zimbabwean and only the second African to win an individual Olympic swimming title.

The 20-year-old led all the way to finish first in a time of 2:09.19 and add gold to the silver she won in the 100 backstroke and the bronze she collected in the 200 medley.

Stanislava Komarova of Russia collected the silver in 2:09.72 while the bronze was shared by Reiko Nakamura of Japan and Antje Buschschulte of Germany who both swam 2:09.88.