Long after the Beijing Olympics is remembered as China's coming out as a world superpower, it is likely to be remembered as the Michael Phelps Games. It was where he came out as perhaps the greatest Olympian of all time.

His haul of eight gold medals in Beijing, added to the six he won in Athens (where he also won two bronze), makes him the most golden of all Olympic athletes. With world records falling in his wake, he did it in a style that seemed to suggest he was destiny's child.

His good fortune extended beyond possessing a body perfectly adapted to swimming -- long torso with arms of prodigious reach, all atop relatively short legs with feet as big as paddles. Even with these advantages, he needed good fortune. At least two of the eight events that ended in gold easily could have spoiled his dream of beating Mark Spitz's 1972 feat at Munich of winning seven gold medals.

In the 400-meter freestyle relay, it took an extraordinary last leg by teammate Jason Lezak to overtake the French team at the last to give the United Stakes (and Michael Phelps) the gold.

Swimming individually in the 100 meter-butterfly, he seemed to be beaten to the wall but managed -- somehow, incredibly -- to touch first. The winning margin was a hundredth of a second, a wisp of elapsed time beyond the naked eye's comprehension. In the Olympics of another, less technologically advanced era, the medal might have gone to Milorad Cavic of Serbia, who was gliding to the finish while Michael Phelps was still in mid-stroke.

Of course, the great ones make their own luck. The utter dedication of Mr. Phelps and his burning passion for victory carried him through the arduous sequence of races, often with little rest in between, and this made the difference every time.

The luck of the American people is that Michael Phelps was a likable winner who seemed as much buoyed by the affection of his family as the water that he parted with a golden wand. It's hard to imagine another like him.