Quick quiz: What has 13 letters and means global phenomenon? Easy. Answer: Michael Phelps. The Beijing Olympics have belonged to one man, a 23-year-old American swimmer from Baltimore who has become a household name from the Philippines to Peru and Cairo to Caracas. With his sensational gold medal and world record haul so far, Phelps has transcended Olympic sports and exploded onto the planet's consciousness as a once-in-a-lifetime supernova. “He doesn't swim – he flies,” said the sports daily Ole in Argentina. With his victory Friday in the 200-meter individual medley, Phelps picked up his sixth gold medal and sixth world record of the Games. With two races left, he is on course to break Mark Spitz's record of seven golds at a single Summer Olympics. His current count of 12 career golds – he also won five in Athens four years ago – has already made Phelps the athlete with the most gold medals in Olympic history. International Olympic Committee President Jacques Rogge calls him simply “the icon of the Games.” Phelps' feats have drawn banner headlines across the world, including in regions and countries where swimming normally gets scant attention, with newspapers and commentators tripping over each other for superlatives and nicknames: “The barracuda from Baltimore,” said Chile's largest newspaper, El Mercurio. “The New Olympic Legend,” blared Egypt's El Badeel. “The American dolphin,” wrote Spain's El Pais. With the Chinese team running away with so many golds, the Phelps phenomenon has hardly been the center of attention in the host country, though it has not gone unnoticed. Friday newspapers' headlines were all about another swimmer, Liu Zige, who won the 200-meter butterfly, giving China its first swimming gold of the Games. Chinese media have dubbed Phelps' the “flying fish” or the “American superfish.” One editorial cartoon showed Phelps as a shark overtaking a torpedo. The world has shown a special fascination with Phelps' diet, which counts an amazing 12,000 calories a day – six times what a normal adult male eats. For example, his breakfast includes three fried-egg sandwiches, an omelet, a bowl of grits, three slices of French toast, three chocolate chip pancakes and two cups of coffee. “Any average adult human being needs some 2,500 daily calories to live a life without excesses,” Argentina's Ole said. “Of course when you're in the presence of a monster like Michael Phelps, those parameters can go to hell.” Nowhere is swimming bigger than in Australia, and Phelps has eclipsed the country's own Ian Thorpe, the ‘Thorpedo' who won five Olympic gold medals, 11 world titles and set 13 world records before retiring in 2006. The Australian, a national broadsheet, described Phelps in a front-page headline Thursday as “the champion who swims in his own galaxy.” “If Michael Phelps were a country he would be sitting fourth on the Games medal tally,” the paper said. A tongue-in-cheek letter in The Age may have best summed up the world's amazement with the Phelps juggernaut. “Is it true,” wrote reader Pat Lester, “that Michael Phelps can take a three-minute shower in 2-1/2 minutes?” – AP __
