Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre butterfly
| Men's 100 metre butterfly at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
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Michael Phelps during the medal ceremony
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| Venue | Beijing National Aquatics Center | ||||||||||||
| Dates | August 14 (heats) August 15 (semifinals) August 16 (final) |
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| Competitors | 66 from 51 nations | ||||||||||||
| Winning time | 50.58 OR | ||||||||||||
| Medalists | |||||||||||||
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Michael Phelps |
 United States
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Milorad Čavić |
 Serbia
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Andrew Lauterstein |
 Australia
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The men's 100 metre butterfly event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 14–16 August at the Beijing National Aquatics Center in Beijing, China.
U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps set a new Olympic record of 50.58 to defend his title in the event, edging out Serbia's Milorad Čavić (50.59) by one hundredth of a second (0.01). He also earned his seventh Olympic gold at a single Games, tying Mark Spitz's 1972 record for the most gold medals. Australia's Andrew Lauterstein earned a bronze in 51.12, finishing in a close race against world record holder Ian Crocker by the slimmest margin. Phelps' triumph occurred after Čavić had remarked that it would be better for the sport if Phelps was defeated. Phelps' margin of triumph was so close that the Serbian team filed a protest, but after officials reviewed the video, the International Swimming Federation (FINA) announced that Phelps did touch the wall first and his victory would be upheld.
Kenya's Jason Dunford finished fifth with a time of 51.47, and was followed in the sixth spot by Japan's Takuro Fujii, in an Asian record of 51.50. Ukraine's Andriy Serdinov (51.59), the bronze medalist in Athens four years earlier, and Papua New Guinea's Ryan Pini, gold medalist at the 2006 Commonwealth Games, (51.86) closed out the field. Dunford and Pini also made history as the first swimmer for their respective nation to reach an Olympic final.
Out of six individual events from his Olympic program, Phelps did not break the current world record in a final, finishing 0.18 of a second behind Crocker's time of 50.40, set in 2005. In the entire event, other records were established, the Olympic record, five continental records, and several national records.
Due to a combination of the venue, Beijing National Aquatics Center (better known as the Water Cube), which was claimed to be built to increase the speed of the swimmers, and the recently introduced LZR Racer swim suits, which had been proven to give the swimmer a lower time by 1.9 to 2.2%, some analysts were predicting that many fast times and world records would be set in all the swimming events.
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