SPORTS December 29, 2008 Issue

EVENTS THAT MADE THE SPIRITS SOAR IN '08

KIM SHIPPEY, SENIOR WRITER

IT'S ALWAYS INSPIRING to see others soaring to heights beyond expectation. And there's been plentiful evidence of extraordinary achievement this past year, in and out of sports arenas.

No one, perhaps, has more convincingly led the way than US swimmer Michael Phelps, who won eight Olympic gold medals in Beijing—though his achievements have provoked some lively discussion: Has he eclipsed baseballer Babe Ruth as the city of Baltimore's greatest athlete? Is he the greatest Olympian ever? Is he the greatest athlete of all time? Or should we stop comparing and agree that what he achieved may simply, albeit astonishingly, constitute the single most sustained success any athlete has ever achieved in an intense period?

I think National Public Radio commentator Frank Deford put things in perspective when he said, "I just know that by what [Phelps] did, with as much grace and courage, day after day, [he] made the human spirit ascend, and that's as good as it gets, whenever, wherever."

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