Michael Phelps won his record eighth gold medal Sunday at the Beijing Olympics as a member of the victorious U.S. 400-meter medley relay team, breaking a tie with Mark Spitz for most golds in a single games.
Aaron Peirsol, Brendan Hansen, Phelps and Jason Lezak won in a world-record of 3 minutes, 29.34 seconds, lowering the old mark of 3:30.68 set four years ago in Athens.
The U.S. swept the men's relays in Beijing with Phelps leading off in the 400 and 800 free relays. Lezak anchored the 400 free to a narrow victory over France to preserve Phelps' historic bid. Australia took the silver in 3:30.04. Japan earned the bronze in 3:31.18.
Phelps now has 14 total gold medals from Athens and Beijing.
While Phelps has become a household name worldwide an Omaha man is also turning heads. He works at the 180th and Center Subway sandwich shop. Anyone ever said you look like Michael Phelps?
“Just a couple people, just mainly this one lady," says Wade Maldonado. "She comes in here every day, she likes to say that quite a bit.”
While Maldonado doesn't set records, the manager says he makes a mean sub. Does he think he looks like Phelps? “Tell you the truth I don't really watch that much news so I've never really seen him up close.”
He can make a sandwich in 50.8 seconds, less time that it took Phelps to win Saturday. Wade is 20, Phelps is 23. Why isn’t Wade winning gold medals?
“I'm working at Subway, there's not much to win here.”