Phelps ties Spitz with seven golds

Michael Phelps surges at the finish to win his seventh gold medal by .01 seconds

BEIJING -- He looked done. Spent. Silvery.

Michael Phelps was seventh at the halfway mark of the 100-meter butterfly Saturday morning in China (Friday night in the U.S). And even though he started picking off swimmers one by one in the last half of the race, he was still second at the 99.9-meter mark.

Then, Phelps reached toward seventh heaven.

The American swimmer out-touched Serbia's Milorad Cavic at the wall by .01 seconds, winning his seventh gold medal of these Olympic Games and tying the record set by U.S. swimmer Mark Spitz in 1972. Phelps will likely win a record-breaking eighth gold Sunday morning Beijing time (Saturday night in the U.S.) in the 4x100-meter medley relay.

Phelps soared to the wall with a final half-stroke while Cavic tried to glide his way to gold from a few centimeters away.

Most people inside the Water Cube thought Cavic had won, but Phelps slammed his hands into the touchpad first with a ferocious last-ditch effort. He said he made the decision to try the choppy half-stroke as a closer out of near-desperation, knowing that he had to rally.

"When I did take that extra half-stroke, I thought that had lost the race," Phelps said shortly after getting out of the pool. "But I guess when I took that half-stroke, that was what I needed."

The Serbian team questioned the result on Cavic's behalf but ultimately did not file a formal protest after seeing the videotape.

FINA, the governing body of swimming, reviewed frame by frame, 1/10,000th of a second at the time and confirmed the result publicly. FINA officials said afterward in a news conference there had been some question as to whether Cavic had tied Phelps, which would have meant both would have received gold medals, but that the video clearly showed Phelps reaching the wall first.

Phelps also saw the super slow-motion video and said, "It's almost too close to see." But he added he would not consider this a gold medal with an asterisk because "the timing system says it all."

Cavic, who grew up mostly in California, had said prior to the race that it would be good for the sport if Phelps lost. However, he was graceful in his news conference afterward.

"I don't want to fight this," Cavic said. "My goal in this race was a bronze, and I surpassed that with a silver. I can say I was the only guy at this competition to have a real shot at beating Phelps one-on-one."

The finish was so spectacularly close Phelps didn't know whether he had won until he pulled off his goggles and looked at the times on the scoreboard: 50.58 seconds for Phelps, 50.59 for Cavic. Then Phelps shook his left arm and whooped in delight.

"I had to take off my goggles first to make sure the '1' was next to my name," Phelps said. "That's when I sort of let out my roar. I felt relief, excitement -- everything."

Phelps said Cavic's pre-race comments had also fired him up. The two looked hard at each other just before the race, but because their goggles were both reflective, they couldn't actually see each other's eyes, Cavic said.

It was the first of Phelps' seven events so far in these Olympics in which he hasn't also set a world record. The 100 butterfly record was set by American Ian Crocker in 2005, but Crocker finished fourth in this race. Australia's Andrew Lauterstein won the bronze.

It was also the closest race Phelps has had here in terms of victory margin. Crocker marveled at his U.S. teammate's ability to close out a race, even one he had seemingly lost.

Said Crocker: "He's one of those rare guys who can win by huge gaps, and he can win really close races, too."

In the other swim finals:

* Margaret Hoelzer won a silver for the U.S. in the 200 backstroke. Hoelzer, who owns a condominium in Charlotte but left Mecklenburg Aquatic Club to train in Seattle for the run-up to the Olympics, finished second to Zimbabwe's Kirsty Coventry. The two were roommates at Auburn, coached by current MAC coach David Marsh.

Hoelzer said she will return to Charlotte shortly after the Olympics and then "figure out what I'm going to do" in terms of future training.

* In the women's 800 freestyle, Great Britain's Rebecca Adlington set a world record while winning the gold, eclipsing American Janet Evans' mark set in 1989.

* In the men's 50 freestyle, Brazil's Cesar Cielo Filho won the gold ahead of Frenchmen Amaury Leveaux (silver) and Alain Bernard (bronze).

* Dara Torres, the 41-year-old sprinter from the U.S., was the fastest qualifier in the women's 50 freestyle. The final is tonight.