IT’s a strange world in which Michael Phelps can win a record eight Olympic gold medals and still be challenged for pre-eminence in the year of the Beijing Games.

But a bolt from the blue Caribbean, in the shape of Jamaican sprinter Usain Bolt, managed to drag the spotlight from the Water Cube to the Bird’s Nest, as two of history’s greatest athletes framed the Games of the XXIX Olympiad.

International Olympic Committee president Jacques Rogge declared the two men the “icons of the Games”.

In a record-breaking year for records, the pair were also the foremost exponents of the art of going where no athlete has gone before.

Appropriately for the first Olympics staged in China, Phelps and Bolt represented the Yin and Yang of great champions — the swimmer and the runner, water and earth, a diet of 12,000 calories a day versus chicken nuggets for breakfast. Phelps lit up the Games by day (thanks to NBC’s insistence on morning finals in the pool) and Bolt by night.

But where Phelps’ triumphant march was expected, even demanded (NBC was counting on it), Bolt’s sudden rise to superstardom was a joyous gift for his troubled sport, beset by doping scandals which had tarnished its credibility along with some once-great names.

It takes a huge talent to hold 90,000 people in thrall but Bolt captured them at the Bird’s Nest from the moment he dashed down the straight to win the 100m in a world record 9.69sec, becoming the fastest man on the planet, despite a side-stepping celebration over the last 20m that may have cost him up to 0.1sec.

But Bolt’s Calypso rhythm and youthful exuberance brought much-needed star quality to the main stadium.

The only time that 21-year-old Bolt was deadly serious was when he stepped onto the blocks for the 200m final. A 200m specialist as a junior competitor, he was desperate to break his hero Michael Johnson’s lauded world record of 19.32sec from Atlanta in 1996.

Bolt ran the half-lap with his eyes only on that mark and every fast-twitch fibre straining forward, stopping the clock in an astonishing 19.30sec.

And he wasn’t finished there. The showman of the Games then combined with former world 100m record-holder Asafa Powell and his Jamaican team-mates to set a third world record in the 4×100m relay.

His name was attached to three of the five world records to fall at the Bird’s Nest.

If Bolt was the king of the track, Russia’s Yelena Isinbayeva was the queen of the air, after she soared to a world record of 5.05m in the pole vault to clinch her second successive Olympic gold medal.

Neither athlete is likely to leave the standard there. Isinbayeva dreams of clearing 5.20m and Bolt believes he can eventually run 100m in 9.52sec, but first he intends to retain his supremacy at the world championships in Berlin in August.

Phelps, from the suburbs of Baltimore, can’t dance like Bolt, but he can swim better than anyone ever has before.

If Bolt brought the glitz to the Games, Phelps brought lethal intent.

Every minute of his Games was managed to give him the best opportunity to destroy Mark Spitz’s fabled record of seven gold medals at one Games.

He had proved it was possible when he won six gold medals as a mere youth in Athens in 2004, and he went to Beijing shouldering more expectation than any man in Olympic history.

But his shoulders proved broad enough for any weight; his dead-eyed focus on the target never wavered.

The only moment when the passion emerged from behind his poker face was when his team-mate Jason Lezak swam a miraculous anchor leg of the 4×100m freestyle relay to swim down France’s world record-holder Alain Bernard. Phelps let out a primeval roar of excitement as Lezak touched first to seal the second gold medal of the magic eight.

Earlier that day, Phelps broke his own world 400m individual medley world record to kick off his campaign, and he would have his own Lezak moment in the 100m butterfly to claim his seventh six days later.

A tired Phelps trailed Serbia’s Milorad Cavic through the entire race but still found a way to get his hands on the wall first.

In all, Phelps broke world records in the 4×100m freestyle relay, 200m freestyle, 200m butterfly, 200m and 400m individual medley, 4×200m freestyle and 4×100m medley relays.

The Water Cube witnessed an astonishing 21 world records in nine days, fuelled by hi-tech swimsuits, improved underwater streamlining techniques and a fast three-metre deep pool.

In the men’s program, only four events survived the onslaught — the men’s 50m, 400m and 1500m freestyle and 100m butterfly. However, Australia’s Eamon Sullivan and France’s Bernard had traded the 50m record in the lead-up to the Games.

Stephanie Rice was the most prominent record-breaker in the women’s ranks, setting new marks to win the 200m and 400m individual medley and help the Australian 4×200m freestyle team to another historic performance for her third gold medal.

As the wash subsides at the end of the year, a staggering 108 world records (including short-course marks) have been claimed. Only five existing world records in Olympic events are older than one year. The hyper-inflation, which was devaluing records, finally forced the International Swimming Federation to review its approval process of new-generation swimsuits.

If it restricts the advance of technology into the sport after crisis meetings in February, this record-breaking year may never be repeated.

But the beauty of the Olympic Games is that, just like in the financial markets, gold holds its value when other measures of success fail.

Matthew Mitcham captivated the nation when he became the only diver to defy a predicted Chinese cleansweep in Beijing, and win the 10m platform final.

He managed to claim a note-worthy record too, earning the highest score in Olympic history, 112.10 (with four perfect 10s), on his final dive — a back 2 1/2 back somersault with 2 1/2 twists — to clinch the gold medal.

Pole vaulter Steve Hooker contented himself with an Olympic record of 5.96m as he became the first Australian man in 40 years to win a gold medal in the main stadium.

The sailing team, triathlete Emma Snowsill, kayaker Ken Wallace and rowers Drew Ginn and Duncan Free contributed to a tally of 14 gold medals in Beijing, the second best performance by an Australian Olympic team offshore (behind the 20 gold in Athens). Some of the gloss was removed by the Old Enemy Britain’s record total of 19 gold, which lifted it above Australia on the medal tally for the first time in 20 years. That’s not a record Australia will be keen to extend in London in 2012.

The long build-up to London begins now and the advance of sport continues, although the pace might slacken a bit in 2009 after the indecent haste of the past year.

source: theaustralian.news.com.au