Phelps could break Olympic gold medals record Wednesday

The U.S swimmer won his third gold medal of the Beijing Olympics after breaking his own world record in the 200-meter freestyle in a time of 1 minute and 42.96 seconds. He now has nine gold medals in his Olympic career.

Phelps was one of four U.S. swimmers on Monday who took part in the very tightly contested 4x100 free relay, called "Race of the Century."

This time however, it was hardly a race at all. It was all Phelps.

He was expected to face a great challenge for the gold form competitors, however he led from the start, finishing 2 seconds ahead of silver medalist Park Tae – Hwan of South Korea, who ended at 1:44.85.

Peter Vanderkaay from the U.S. won the bronze in 1:45:14.

Only four other athletes besides Phelps have nine gold medals. Among them are swimmer Mark Spitz and track star Carl Lewis. Phelps has five more chances in these Olympics to claim the record for most gold medals in one Olympics, for a total of eight. The previous record was seven medals by Swimmer Mark Spitz in the 1972 Munich Games.

Phelps' next race is this Wednesday.

"We're not even realizing what an incredible athlete he is," Natalie Coughlin, a world-class Olympic swimmer in her own right, told CNN.

"Obviously he's amazing and he breaks all these world records, but I think being a part of that, we almost take it for granted."