(FILES): This August 16, 2008 file photo shows US swimmer Michael Phelps reacting after winning the men's 100m butterfly swimming final at the National Aquatics Center during the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games in Beijing.  USA Swimming suspended Olympic superstar Michael Phelps for three months on February 5, 2009, a "reprimand" after a published photograph showed him apparently smoking marijuana.  The national governing body of the sport stressed that the punishment was not for a doping violation, but said they wanted to send a "s trong message" to Phelps about his status as a role model for young people.   AFP PHOTO / MARTIN BUREAU (Photo credit should read MARTIN BUREAU/AFP/Getty Images)
Michael Phelps on winning eight gold medals in Beijing
01:02 - Source: CNN
CNN  — 

To win one Olympic gold medal is the stuff of dreams. To win eight at the same Games defies logic.

Yet in 2008, swimming superstar Michael Phelps pulled off the seemingly impossible, winning eight golds in Beijing to surpass Mark Spitz’s seven-medal effort in 1972.

Five of Phelps’s medals came in individual events, tying a record set in 1980.

“I put them all on for the first time this morning,” Phelps told CNN shortly after his historic haul.

“They felt pretty heavy around my neck, so it was a little hard to hold my neck up straight.

“But I mean, I can’t say it enough: it was an unforgettable experience.”

Watch Phelps’s 2008 interview with CNN World Sport at the top of the page.