updated 3:48 a.m. ET Aug. 29, 2004

ATHENS, Greece - Michael Phelps won another gold medal, this time wearing khaki shorts and flip-flops.

From a front-row seat at the Olympic pool, Phelps watched his teammates do all the work in the 400-meter individual medley Saturday night. When they won with a world-record time, Phelps got a gold, too — his record-tying eighth medal of the Athens Games.

“It felt like I was part of that race,” said Phelps, who earned his gold by swimming the event in the preliminaries.

Phelps led the U.S. contingent in cheers, pounded the side of an “Athens 2004” sign, waved an American flag and screamed “Go Jason!” as Jason Lezak completed the rout, easily retaining the lead built up by Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen and Ian Crocker.

When the scoreboard flashed “WR” — world record — Phelps threw up his arms to celebrate.

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“I can’t tell you about how exciting it is to be on the other side of the sport,” he said.

Phelps earned a spot in the medley final by winning the 100 butterfly Friday night. But he ceded his place to Crocker, wanting to give the silver medalist a chance to make up for a poor showing in the 400 free relay.

Before the race, Phelps signed autographs and posed for pictures with swimmers from other countries. After the medal ceremony, he hugged Crocker.

“I’m proud of giving someone like Ian another chance,” said Phelps, whose eight medals tied Soviet gymnast Aleksandr Dityatin’s record at the boycotted 1980 Moscow Games.

The United States has never lost a men’s medley relay at the Olympics, and it didn’t really matter who swam the fly — Phelps or Crocker. The Americans dominated the race, setting a world record of 3 minutes, 30.68 seconds, nearly three second ahead of runner-up Germany. Japan won the bronze, its first medal in the event since 1960.

While every swimmer relishes the chance to swim a relay final, Phelps wanted Crocker to get his first gold of the games.

That he did, swimming nearly a second faster than Phelps’ gold-winning time in the 100 fly the previous night. Swimming the anchor leg, Lezak touched nearly a second ahead of the world record (3:31.54) set by the Americans at last year’s world championships.

“I did the job they thought I could,” Crocker said. “I’m really happy with the way things ended up.”

Actually, there were two records set in the race, since the opening swimmer can get credit for an individual record in a relay. Peirsol started out with a time of 53.45 in the backstroke leg, breaking teammate Lenny Krazelburg’s 5-year-old record of 53.60 in the 100 back.

The United States won 12 golds and 28 medals overall at the pool — short of their 14-gold, 33-medal performance in Sydney four years ago. Still, it was easily the most of any country — runner-up Australia claimed seven golds and 15 total medals.

Swimming - Men's 4x100-meter Medley Relay (medals: Aug. 21st) Medal Athlete Country Result Gold Crocker, Peirsol, Hensen, Lezak United States 3:30.68 WR Silver Driesen, Kruppa, Rupprath, Lars Germany 3:33.62 Bronze Morita, Kitajima, Yamamoto, Okumura Japan 3:35.22 NBCO: Schedules, preliminary result and complete final results

EIGHT MEDALS FOR MICHAEL PHELPS Medal date Event Result Sat, Aug 14 400 individual medley Gold (WR) Sun, Aug 15 400 freestyle relay Bronze Mon, Aug 16 200 freestyle Bronze Tue, Aug 17 200 butterfly Gold Tue, Aug 17 800 freestyle relay Gold Thur, Aug 19 200m individual medley Gold (OR) Fri, Aug 20 100 butterfly Gold (OR) Sat, Aug 21 400 medley relay Gold (WR)

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