Swimming: Highlights of the past decade

Factbox on highlights from the past 10 years of world swimming selected by Reuters correspondent Julian Linden.

Swimmer of the decade: Michael Phelps not only proved himself the swimmer of the decade but also claimed the title of the greatest of all time. He won an unprecedented eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, giving him a record total of 14 after his six golds from Athens four years earlier.

The American also collected 22 gold medals at five world championships from 2001 to 2009 and set world records in five different individual events — 200 metres freestyle, 100m butterfly, 200m butterfly, 200m individual medley and 400m individual medley.

Defining moment: Phelps's hopes of winning eight gold medals in Beijing were sinking fast when he trailed Serbia's Milorad Cavic by almost half a body length nearing the end of the 100 metres butterfly final. But the American took a calculated gamble on his penultimate stroke, rolling his enormous shoulders over once more with a short, sharp lunge that enabled him to get his fingertips on the wall first by one-hundredth of a second, the smallest possible margin in swimming. That victory gave him his seventh gold medal, equalling the record Mark Spitz set at Munich in 1972, and a day later he scooped up his eighth in the medley relay to set a new landmark.

Race of the decade: It might have been prematurely billed as the "race of the century" but the men's 200 metres freestyle final at the 2004 Athens Olympics really did live up to all the hype and expectation. It was the only time the three best male swimmers of the decade, Michael Phelps, Ian Thorpe and Pieter van den Hoogenband, lined up on the blocks against each other and the trio provided an enthralling exhibition to match the occasion, leaving other rivals for dead as they fought out the finish. Thorpe won the gold with van den Hoogenband second and Phelps third with less than half a second separating them when they touched the wall.