BEIJING (AP):

HIS OLYMPICS looking lost, Michael Phelps decided to flap those gangly arms one more time.

Milorad Cavic, so close to spoiling it all, glided along just under the surface, convinced he had won gold.

But Phelps swam into history with a magnificent finish on Friday night (Ja time), tying Mark Spitz with his seventh gold medal by the narrowest of margins in the 100-metre butterfly - one-hundredth of a second.

"Dream as big as you can dream and anything is possible," Phelps said. "I am sort of in a dream world. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it is real."

Call it the Great Haul of China - and it's not done yet. Phelps had one more race last night (Ja time), which will likely complete his coronation as the greatest Olympian ever.

Spitz already ceded the title.

"It goes to show you that not only is this guy the greatest swimmer of all time and the greatest Olympian of all time, he's maybe the greatest athlete of all time," the icon of the 1972 Munich Games said. "He's the greatest racer who ever walked the planet."

Close finish

The finish was so close the Serbian delegation filed a protest and swimming's governing body had to review the tape down to the 10-thousandth of a second.

Phelps thought he lost - until he saw the "1" beside his name on the scoreboard.

"When I did chop the last stroke, I thought that had cost me the race," he said. "But it was actually the opposite. If I had glided, I would have been way too long. I took short, faster strokes to try to get my hand on the wall. I ended up making the right decision."