World Records

BEIJING -- Water threatened to sink Michael Phelps' bid for eight gold medals at a single Olympics and nearly delayed his ascendancy in becoming the most decorated athlete in Olympic history. If that sounds strange, you try swimming a 200-meter butterfly with water filling your goggles and getting worse by the second. Phelps said he couldn't see anything for about the last 100 meters, but he got his hand on the gold medal in that event, in a world-record 1 minute 52.

There's a mystery at the heart of "Sherlock Holmes," and it's not the one the great master of detection has been called on to solve. It's how a film that has so many good things going for it has turned out to be solid but not spectacular. Solid, of course, is more than many studio films can muster these days, but we expect better when we're dealing with the world's greatest consulting detective, someone who has been played by more than 70 actors in something like 200 films, good enough for inclusion in the Guinness Book of World Records.

Chase Utley saw his first World Series game when, as a 9-year-old growing up outside Los Angeles, he went to see the Dodgers play the Oakland Athletics in 1988. "Game 2," his father, Dave, said. "The game after Kirk Gibson." For two decades that was the closest Utley would come to a dramatic World Series home run until Monday, when he hit two in Philadelphia's 8-6 victory over the New York Yankees in Game 5 of the World Series, extending the Phillies' season for at least two more days.

J. Gregory (Greg) Rice, who set world records in the indoor two- and three-mile races in the early 1940s and '50s, died in River Edge, N.J., of a stroke.

In the story of the Sunkist Invitational track meet, writer Julie Cart went far overboard in focusing on the failure of the milers to threaten world records. Meanwhile, her story grudgingly noted that while several meet records were set, they were in seldom-held events. Huh! Meet records were recorded in the men's long jump, the men's 3000 meters and women's 50-meter hurdles. All are official events listed by the IAAF for world records. AL FRANKEN, Chairman, Sunkist Invitational

Michael Phelps' seven gold medals and five world records in the World Swimming Championships may not make Phelps a rich man, and that's all right. What he did for sports and particularly the United States is priceless. ROBERT H. WILLIAMS Monterey Park

Tyson Gay beat Asafa Powell in the 100 meters at the World Athletics Final in Thessaloniki, Greece, on Saturday, finishing in 9.88 seconds in his last major race of the season. Gay overcame a slow start to pull away from Powell, who was timed in 9.90. Darvis Patton of the U.S. was third in 10.00. World record-holder Usain Bolt skipped the race. Allyson Felix won the women's 200, beating fellow American Sanya Richards in a photo finish after both finished in 22.29.

Suits, lies and videotape. Reintroducing the battle between Michael Phelps and Milorad Cavic in the men's 100-meter butterfly: the sequel. The suits: Cavic, wearing the high-tech bodysuit, the polyurethane Arena X-Glide, at the world championships, offered to buy Phelps one, saying: "If Michael wants an Arena, he just has to say. If he wants a Jaked they don't want to give it to him for free, I'll buy it for him." Phelps will stick with his "old school" Speedo LZR Racer.

Down goes Phelps. It was bound to happen some day to Michael Phelps. But not this way and not in this race and certainly not at the hands of a relatively anonymous German swimmer with an exceedingly modest resume. Paul Biedermann shed his anonymity only days ago when he broke a vaunted world record in the 400-meter freestyle. On Tuesday, he shed Phelps, handing the swim icon his first loss in about four years in an individual event at a major international meet.

Swimmers set 11 world records in the first two days of the world championships, proof that the supposed stewards of the sport have turned the sublime into the ridiculous. Records that stood for years now change hands within hours, and more will fall in the last six days of competition at Rome's Foro Italico pool. "This is just ridiculous," five-time Olympian Dara Torres told reporters in Rome.

This all started with an equipment malfunction in the morning relay and ended with the favored French sprinters wilting again, giving Michael Phelps and friends another riveting victory in the 400-meter freestyle relay. In between, there were world records tumbling and falling on Day 1 of the world championships. Six fell Sunday night, including one widely considered untouchable, Ian Thorpe's 400-meter freestyle record, as well the oldest women's mark on the books, the 100 butterfly.

No doubt about it, Doctor Who is a character who can stand the test of time. But can he compete with his own past? With more than 750 episodes aired, "Doctor Who" holds the record for the "longest running science fiction show," according to the Guinness Book of World Records. The first episode aired the day after John F. Kennedy was shot in November 1963, and the character has never been more popular in his native England or in the U.S. than in the last few years. But that's part of the problem now confronting the show: David Tennant, the 10th actor to occupy the role of the eccentric time-traveler, has moved on and there are plenty of fans grieving.

A Utah woman listed in the Guinness Book of World Records for her long fingernails has lost them in a car crash. Lee Redmond of Salt Lake City sustained serious but non-life-threatening injuries in the accident Tuesday. Redmond's nails, which hadn't been cut since 1979, were broken in the crash. According to the Guinness website, her nails measured a total of more than 28 feet long in 2008, with the longest nail on her right thumb at 2 feet, 11 inches.

BEIJING -- Four years ago in Athens, 26 Olympians tested positive for performance-enhancing drugs, which most agree was only a fraction of those who had artificial help gushing through their bloodstreams. This weekend in China, Ukrainian weightlifter Igor Razoronov submitted a dirty test. He was only the sixth athlete busted at these Summer Games, representing quite a falloff from the 2004 total. There really aren't many conclusions for us to draw here. The athletes have either been scared clean, or they've stayed ahead of the drug-testers.