In the Crowd: Phelps and family after the race. Photo by Donald Miralle for NEWSWEEK

Sunday 8/17--A confession: early in week of the swimming competition, I and a lot of other American journalists would not have been too disappointed had Michael Phelps lost a race, say that 4X200 meters relay in which Jason Lezak bailed him out with a phenomenal final leg.

Nothing personal. He's a great swimmer, a total professional and a genial young man. But he's also a pool rat, with no real interests outside the water. A daily diet of Phelps and more Phelps left us struggling for new things to say and new verbs and adjectives with which to say it. Fast, faster, fastest!

With Phelps consuming all our attention, we were unable to pay much or any attention to some standout American swimmers--Aaron Piersol, Rebecca Soni, Ryan Lochte, Natalie Coughlin--whose gold-medal performances lit up The Swim Cube and whose stories, if not necessarily any more compelling than his, were at least different. When I wrote about Lochte or Ian Crocker, it was as potential foils for Phelps. When I wrote about Lezak, it was as best supporting actor. Even "Supermom" Dara Torres who arrived in Beijing on a torrent of publicity got relatively short shrift for her--extraordinary at age 41 or at any age--three silver medals.

The Phelps saga also confined a lot of reporters to The Cube, which, though my favorite of the new stadiums, began to feel rather claustrophobic. Life at pool level kept us from venturing too far--to the beach volleyball where Misty May-Treanor and Kerri Walsh continued a winning streak that now approaches a year, to the basketball venue where Kobe and company were demonstrating that NBA players can play defense or to the volleyball courts where the U.S. men's team was playing its heart out for a coach whose family had endured an unimaginable tragedy here.

But all sports reporters, however cynical they may at times appear, began life as sports fans. And as Phelps continued to defy the odds and amaze with his combination of prowess and good fortune, we were seduced by the magnitude of his achievements and the lure of history. Once he won the two events in which he settled for bronze four years ago in Athens and passed the halfway mark, we were all pretty much on board--silently cheering him all the way and sharing his dream.

Of course, he had never shared with us what exactly his dream was. While it was implicitly defined by the events he entered, Phelps never said a word publicly about hoping to win eight gold medals and to break Mark Spitz's record of seven in one Olympics. After he claimed the eighth gold medal today in the 4X100 relay, he finally revealed it or, more precisely, just conceded the obvious: "What else could I do?" he said. "Doing all best times, winning every race--everything was accomplished that I wanted to." (Okay, he left one world record on the deck, but who's going to quibble?)

The final 4X100 medley relay, with the Americans talented at every stroke, had been regarded as one of Phelps' easiest golds. But the Australians made it anything but. When Phelps hit the water for the butterfly, the third leg of the race, he found himself swimming in third place, behind the Aussies. One hundred meters later, after Phelps' last great swim of this Olympics--almost a full second better than his Australian counterpart, the U.S. team had a comfortable lead and Lezak would have just as soon drowned as relinquish it. "This was not just for Michael, but for all of us," he said following the race..

And I guess by then I had begun to believe "for all of us" existed in a far larger sense. In some ways, what Phelps accomplished is simply unfathomable. Spitz was a great champion, but in 1972 when he won his seven golds in Munich the swimming world was a much smaller place. There were no gold medalists from Brazil or Tunisia back then. You had to beat one top American teammate, but you didn't have another hotshot Californian chasing you in Serbian colors.

I have covered 10 Olympics now for Newsweek, seen Carl Lewis, Michael Johnson, the original Dream Team, "The Magnificent Seven", Mia Hamm and her soccer sisters, Tomba "La Bomba", Gordyeva and Grinkov, Torvill and Dean and just this week the balletic gymnastics of Nastia Liukin and the historic speed of Usain Bolt. All these Olympic moments and achievements sent chills up my spine. This performance by Phelps, one that combined excellence and endurance, certainly rivals any of them, perhaps even surpasses all of them. (The superb Australian breast-stroker Liesel Jones, who won a gold medal today in the relay just before Phelps' finale, said her greatest thrill in Beijing was watching Phelps swim. Clearly a lot of other swimmers felt that way too.)

I have no need to rank these greatest Olympic hits. Each has a prominent place in the scrapbook of my mind. Same with Phelps who said every memory of this perfect week of swimming--"a fun week," he called it--is ingrained in his mind and heart. On the other hand, he is taking home a lot of souvenirs: every swimsuit, every pair of goggles, all the sweats he donned this week at the pool. And before he starts getting all secretive again about his next dream, he did admit that he has his sights set on London 2016. Maybe swimming a few different races. Is it possible that he could try for a repeat while swimming five different individual events? Phelps would say that he is living proof that you can dream big--the impossible dream--and actually achieve it. "I'm lucky to have everything I have--the talent, the drive and the excitement about the sport," he said.

But first a vacation and a far more modest dream, one where talent, drive and excitement play absolutely no part. "What I'm looking forward to is not doing anything," he said. "Sitting. Not moving."

The finish of the 100 meter butterfly between Phelps and Milorad Cavic, a Californian swimming for Serbia, was so close that, frankly, it couldn't be judged by the naked eye. Just by comparison to a Phelps gold earlier in the week the margin of victory in the dramatic come-from-behind American win in the 4x200 freestyle relay was .08, or eight times greater than today's. Cavic had been leading the entire race and, in the final meters, glided fully outstretched to touch the wall. Phelps decided a glide was futile and he took one final half stroke, swinging his arms over with a final chop to make his touch. "When I did that last half stroke, I thought it cost me the race," he said, "but it was exactly the opposite."

Phelps whipped off his goggles to enable him to see the scoreboard, which flashed Phelps in first place in 50.58, an Olympic record but for the first time in this Games not a world record along with his victory, and Cavic second in 50.59. Only then did he let loose with a howl, pound the water and pump his arms in celebration. Later he would say, "It seems I'm in sort of a dream world. Sometimes you have to pinch yourself to see it's real. I'm just glad it's real."

The Serbian team filed an official protest and the international swimming federation, FINA, said their analysis of the finish confirmed the result. FINA said the Omega timing mechanism was working properly (and the backup system, run by battery as opposed to cable that ran the primary system, produced an identical finish); furthermore, when the videotape was slowed down to super-slo-mo, the eye confirmed it too. "It was very clear that the Serbian swimmer had second," said Kenya's Ben Ekumbo, the race referee. FINA officials then took the unusual step of letting the Serbian team officials view the same tape and, Ekumbo said, they were satisfied with the judgment and decided not to appeal it.

Cavic had Phelps in his sights from the opening heat of the event two days ago when he beat Phelps by .09 and playfully turned his hand into a gun and mock fired at the superstar. And he also  swam a faster time than Phelps in yesterday's semis too. Given his recent behavior—he was booted from the European championships for wearing a T-shirt espousing Serbian control of Kosovo to the medal podium—he might have been expected to have been a bit more contentious about the split-second loss.

He was just the opposite, as gracious and classy as one could imagine an athlete being under such circumstances. Cavic said that there is simply no way to fathom such a tiny margin. His coached had clipped hairs of his neck at the last second and—who knows, he said—that might have cut .01 off his time. He was unaware of any formal protest and had no desire to fight the decision. "It was a real honor for me to race Michael Phelps and to have all eyes on me as the guy who could possibly do it," he said. In fact, Cavic said, he was "stoked" by the result. He had come out of retirement last year and set his sights as high as a bronze medal. "So I'm enjoying this moment. I wish it was a gold medal, but I'm happy with the silver."

Phelps wasn't going to let his moment be spoiled by any debate about the finish that, he conceded, even after watching it slowed down frame by frame was "almost too close to see." On the other hand, he thought winning by what is the smallest possible margin in his sport was "pretty cool." (The Australian who won the bronze claimed his medal over the fourth-place swimmer by the identical margin.) But Phelps let the final say on any controversy go to Omega, which just happens to be one of his sponsors. "The timing system says it all.," he said. "There hasn't been an error in the timing system I ever heard of."

Even with one more race—the 4X100 medley relay that has is considered a breeze for the powerful American team—ahead tomorrow for the historic record, Phelps was for the first time tempted to was philosophical about his accomplishments at this Olympics. "If you dream as big as you can dream, anything is possible." In winning his Spitz-tying seventh gold, Phelps claimed a $1 million bonus from Speedo, the swimsuit manufacturer and another Phelps sponsor. Of course one million in sports is chump change and just a small ante toward what his performance in Beijing will yield.

But Phelps wasn't going to speculate about any of that. "I'm not doing it for the money," he said. "I do it because I love what I do." Asked about any big dreams he has for the future, he said his overarching dream has been to change the stature of his sport in America. And with word that the race was carried live on the jumbotron in Yankee Stadium, he said maybe he is beginning to get somewhere.

Cavic got one last opportunity to keep controversy alive, but he was having none of it. Asked if he considered Phelps the gold-medal winner, he simply laid down a challenge. "I think if we got to do this again," he said. "I would win it." But Phelps has met every challenge laid before him. "I always welcome comment," he said. "I like it. It definitely motivates me." He is, by contrast, of the "let the swimming do the talking" persuasion. And in Beijing, it seems to be saying: greatest Olympic performance in history.

Friday 8/15--The most extraordinary thing in what has become the ordinary for Michael Phelps—a sixth gold medal, a sixth world record—is that midway through today's 200 meter individual medley, with a Hungarian swimmer challenging him for the lead, he smoked his would-be rival in the breast stroke, always regarded as the weakest stroke in his swimming repertoire. By the time, Phelps began the final freestyle leg, the race was over and he steamed home in 1:54.23, more than a half second under the world record he had set earlier this summer at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Phelps' reaction to this win was perhaps his most muted to date. He didn't wave, didn't even crack a smile until he was actually accepting the gold medal on the podium. It's as if, with his dream of a record eight gold medals potentially just 48 hours away, he refused to expend the least bit of unnecessary physical or emotional energy.

Besides he had another race, the semi-final heat of the 100 meter butterfly, in less than a half hour. Naturally he won his heat, though his time was a fraction slower than that of Serbia's Milorad Cavic who won the second heat. But he finished .3 seconds faster than his teammate Ian Crocker, the only swimmer other than Phelps to claim the world record in one of his events. Tomorrow's final looms as the last true threat to Phelps' record quest.

The 4X100 medley relay on Sunday (or 10:58 p.m. EDT Saturday night for viewers in America), is essentially a gimme for the powerful U.S. team, which boasts Olympic multi-medalists on every leg. All it has to do is avoid disqualification. That might not even be worth mentioning if the same bunch hadn't been disqualified at last year's worlds when Crocker, subbing for Phelps in a preliminary heat in butterfly, left too early. The dream scenario is very much alive, but for Phelps so too will be the nightmare scenario until that final gold is his.

Thursday, 8/12-- Despite all the claims to the contrary by his swimming rivals, it turns out that Michael Phelps is not God. Phelps finally rested on the sixth day.

Of course, resting in the swimming competition is not to be confused with not swimming. On the morning of his rest day, Phelps did swim the semi-final of the 200 individual medley, winning his heat in the second best time of the day, .01 behind his teammate Ryan Lochte. And he had a 100-meter butterfly to swim that evening. But Phelps didn't have to swim a final, break a world record, stand on a podium for a victory ceremony, or sit for a formal press conference. And in a record quest for eight gold medals that could come down to split seconds, that counts as a rest day.

So for Phelps it was quick exits from The Swim Cube and back to the village for his daily rituals of sleep, pasta, ice baths and massage that are the entirety of his life until this Olympic swimming competition ends Sunday. Here's what he has to look forward to as his chase comes down to a precious three in three days:

Friday, the 200IM (Thursday night for American viewers): There has always been a feeling that one day Phelps' fellow American and good buddy, Lochte, was going to turn the tables on him. But that day never seems to come. It didn't happen at the Athens Olympics, where Lochte took the silver in the same event. It didn't happen at last year's world championships in Melbourne, where he took second to Phelps in both IMs, It didn't happen at the Olympic Trials, where he was again runner-up in the two medleys. And most recently, it didn't happen here in the 400IM, when Lochte settled for bronze. On Friday morning Phelps will actually be the better rested of the two at race time, as Lochte will compete the 200 meter backstroke final less than a half hour earlier. This doesn't figure to be the day he finally beats Phelps in an IM.

Saturday, the 200 meter butterfly: Realistically this is probably the last chance for anybody to stop Phelps. And the swimmer best positioned to do it is another American, Phelps' nemesis Ian Crocker.  Nothing personal, of course. But in Athens it was Crocker's slow leg that led to a disappointing bronze medal for Phelps in the 4X100 meter freestyle relay and prevented him from tying Mark Spitz's record seven gold medals. And at last year's worlds in Melbourne, Crocker left too early in a preliminary heat of the 4x100 medley relay, getting the U.S. team disqualified and costing Phelps a perfect 8-for-8 gold championship.  Now Crocker has the chance to deny Phelps straight up. He is well rested, having abandoned freestyle to concentrate on butterfly, and he still holds bragging rights to the world record, the one world record Phelps hasn't claimed in his individual events.

Sunday, the 4X100 medley relay: Athens taught him that another guy's bad day can be the difference between bronze and gold just like another swimmer's exceptional day was the difference between gold and silver earlier this week. Melbourne taught Phelps that disaster can always strike, possibly even in a preliminary round when he is back sleeping in his room.That being said, there is no way the Americans lose this relay. The team has superstars in all four strokes. If Phelps gets to the finals of this race with seven gold medals in hand, the record eighth is a mortal lock.

Wednesday 8/13--Even perfection can be a wee bit tedious and I was feeling a little waterlogged from life in The Water Cube. So I took a break from the pool to watch our women gymnasts duel China, in full confidence that Michael Phelps would breeze to two more gold medals and two more world records—and take a giant stroke closer to destiny. And breeze he did. My colleague Jonathan Ansfield was there to see it and he filed this report:

Another two races, another two records. It was Phelps 10th and 11^th Olympic gold medals, an all-time modern-day record that leaves behind such Olympic immortals as Mark Spitz, Carl Lewis and Paavo Nurmi. But it was just another day in the pool for Phelps in the 200 meter butterfly. The man the Chinese call flying fish (a play on the transliteration of his name) came out slashing at the gold that would make his the most decorated Olympian in the modern history of the Games. But by the end of the first length of the pool, New Zealands Moss Burmeister had surprisingly caught him. A whiff of tension blew through the press tribune. But no worries. Phelps simply wound it up a notch and quickly overtook Burmeister.

From there it was business as usual. Phelps won by more than half his very long body span, touching home in 1:52.03, .06 seconds under his previous mark that he of course set himself at the world championships in Melbourne. The crowd was almost as blasé about the accomplishment, perhaps hoping that Phelps was saving something better for the 4X200 freestyle relay he would swim an hour later. Bronze medalist Takeshi Matsuda said after the 200 fly, "I pursued him better than I thought I would." However, Hungary's Laszlo Cseh, who took a surprising silver, never believed he or anybody else had a chance. "I kept my eyes on Michael but it was a race with myself," he said. Still, it was a closer call than Phelps might have liked in what is his favorite race. He said his goggles had filled up with water and he had trouble seeing for the final half of the race. "I wanted to go 1:51 or better," said the man who is never satisfied. "But for the circumstances I guess its not too bad".  

The Phelps family was bouncing up and down in the stands, but Phelps himself was clearly less than impressed. But as fates would have it, that swiftly changed. Leading off the 4X200 meter relay a little less tan an hoiur later, Phelps was swimming out of his mind. He gained an average of more than half a body length on the field for each every length of the pool. By the end of his leg, the U.S. more than two body lengths ahead, and more than two seconds ahead of world record time. Speedster Ryan Lochte stretched the lead to about a fifth of the pool and Ricky Berens and Peter Vanderkaay led the U.S. men home. They beat the record by 3.68 seconds, breaking the magic seven-minute mark.

 Now it was Phelps' moment to uncork and he exploded. By the time anchor Vanderkaay touched the wall, he, Lochte and Berens were already whooping it up in jubilation. Nobody appeared more psyched than Phelps, hooting hard, arms flailing. Throughout the medal ceremony and before the cameras, Phelps and his buddies beamed and you could sense that he is beginning to feel those record eight gold medals within his grasp.

Russian relay man Alexander Sukhorukov looked on from the adjoining silver podium and wondered about the conqueror. He said that Phelps may be human, but he's still from another planet.

Tuesday 8/12--As difficult and dramatic as Monday was for Michael Phelps, Tuesday was that easy and routine. His third final--this one the 200-meter freestyle--produced his third gold medal and his third world record. Ho-hum. 

With another race on his morning program in less than an hour--the 200-meter butterfly semis in which he would only set an Olympic record--about the only emotional energy Phelps expended after his victory was applauding teammate Peter Vanderkaay on the bronze-medal podium in the same race. Phelps' victory in the 200-meter freestyle was a romp from the start. "I wanted to try and get out into the open water..I just wanted to get out there and try to hold on," Phelps said afterward.

By the time he came up for a breath after his start, he already had a half body on the field and "hold on" doesn't quite do justice to the effort; he extended his lead at every 50-meter split, winning by a margin of almost two full seconds. Everyone is in awe of Phelps, even his rivals. Taewan Park, who took the silver, said "Phelps swam so fast...it is my honor to compete with him."

With his victory and his ninth lifetime gold today, he tied four other athletes, including Mark Spitz and Carl Lewis, atop the all-time Olympic gold-medal list. He has also now claimed gold in the two events in which he had to settle for bronze in Athens, the only two blemishes on his eight-medal performance there. Today's 200-meter field couldn't compare to Athens', what with the great "Thorpedo," Australia's Ian Thorpe, retired, and Holland's Peter van den Hoogenband, who won silver and gold in the last two Olympics in the event, concentrating solely on the 100 meters.

Almost halfway through his nine-day swimming week, Phelps' record chase is beginning to move out of the dream state into the realm of the very possible, maybe even highly likely. The two relays, particularly the 4X100 medley relay that could yield the record eighth gold on Sunday, should be a breeze with disqualification perhaps a more serious threat than defeat. And you could probably feel pretty safe betting the house on Phelps in the 200 fly and 200 individual medley.

The fly in the ointment (or the metaphorical equivalent in a swimming pool that is best left unwritten) is the 100-meter butterfly and Phelps' fellow American and longtime rival Ian Crocker. Crocker is a veteran--he will turn 26 in a few weeks and this is his third Olympics--and he still holds the world record in the event, one of the few that has eluded Phelps. He finished a close second behind Phelps in Athens and is concentrating on butterfly only (he competed in the 100 freestyle in Athens) while  Phelps will meet him after having raced 15 times.

Phelps refuses to get ahead of himself, taking a "one race at a time" approach. He gets up between 4:30 and 5 a.m. each morning and spends his time between sessions "eating a lot of pizza and pasta" and sleeping as much as he can, bolstering his recovery with ice baths and massage. He tries to quickly forget the high of each victory, as difficult as it was to do with Monday's dramatic relay triumph. "I had to force myself to put it out of my head," he said. "I have to keep 100 percent focused." 

Monday 8/11--I wouldn't be surprised--and frankly I wouldn't blame him--if on Monday morning in some private place, Mark Spitz was pounding a wall with his fists. Great athletes are eternally competitive and Spitz hasn't tried to mask his hope that, after Beijing, he will still hold the record for most gold medals--seven at Munich in 1972--in a single Olympics.

Michael Phelps, of course, has set his sights on eight golds and Monday's race--his second final, the 4 X 100-Meter relay--loomed as potentially the biggest stumbling block. The United States hadn't won that relay since Atlanta '96 and four years ago in  Athens Phelps and his team had to settle for bronze. Many swimming experts believed France, anchored by 100-meter world recordholder Alain Bernard, would snap Phelps' golden skein before it had gained much momentum.

But It didn't happen. Phelps is still golden--thanks to an extraordinary anchor leg by his teammate Jason Lezak in what is an early contender for the single most thrilling event of the Olympics. Five teams broke the existing world record set by the American's "B" team in the preliminary round the previous evening and the U.S.'s winning time of 3:08.24 was almost four full seconds under the mark, but just .08 ahead of second-place France. "France was doing a lot of trash talking," said Phelps, but he said Garrett Weber-Gale, who would swim the second leg after Phelps led off, urged his teammates, "We're going to let our swimming do the talking."

Nobody talked louder than Lezak, at 32 a veteran of three Olympic teams with two gold medals, a silver and a bronze--all in relays. Phelps, who in contrast to his low-key victory yesterday. celebrated the win by shrieking, loud enough to be heard over the thunderous crowd that for the second straight day included President Bush, as he leaped and pumped his fist toward the roof. Afterward, he called Lezak "the greatest relay swimmer of all time. The last 50 meters were absolutely incredible."

In truth the entire race was incredible. Phelps only managed to put his team in second place behind Australia after Eamon Sullivan swam a world record for his opening leg. Weber-Gale got the Americans in front with the French now in second place, but after Cullen Jones' third leg, Lezak hit the pool in second place, .31 seconds behind the French team and Bernard. He was almost a full body length behind as he made the last turn--"There's no way," he said to himself-- and, with 25 meters to go, still trailed by half a body length. Somehow he surged past the French swimming star in the final meters and barely touched him out by a fingertip at the finish.

Lezak's time of 46.06 was the fastest relay leg in history more than a half second faster than any other swimmer in the race. Lezak, who has been on the 4X100 teams that lost in both Sydney and Athens, called his effort "unreal," saying that he had never pulled of a stretch run like that one before, but that he never gave up hope.He emphasized, however, that whatever he had accomplished, it was not for just Phelps and his goals, but for himself and the entire team.

It won't get much easier for Phelps Tuesday for when he contests the 200-meter freestyle, the other of his eight events in which he took bronze in Athens. But as of today he remains perfect--just not the number one star of the day. That's Jason Lezak's honor.

Sunday 8/10--Some sage said that the journey of a thousand miles begins with one small step. And since it isn't very funny, it couldn't have been Mark Twain so, being in Beijing I'll guess Confucius, the font of all wisdom here (now that Mao, in retrospect, proved not all that wise).

Michael Phelps has now launched his journey--one that could end on Sunday with an Olympic record eight gold medals--with one small step, if you are willing to think metaphorically. There is nothing small about Michael Phelps. He is a freak of nature with a tall tree torso, giant hands and big flipper feet. And Sunday, in what is his signature event, the 400-meter individual medley, he left the field in the dust or whatever is the water equivalent. Molecules?

There had been some speculation that this might be the magical moment for the other American IMer, Ryan Lochte, who has comfortably--perhaps too comfortably--raced as Alydar, the perpetual runner-up, to Phelps' champion Affirmed. He stayed with Phelps til the very end at the U.S. Olympic Trials this summer in Omaha. On this day he managed to wrest the lead away from Phelps after the third leg, the first half of the backstroke, but 50 meters later Phelps was once again in the clear and nobody approached him again.

When Phelps touched out in a time of 4:03.84, he had shattered the world record, the one he had already set seven times, by the considerable margin of 1.32 seconds. He finished more than two full seconds ahead of Hungary's Laszio Cseh who caught Lochte in the freestyle leg. Lochte claimed the bronze. (Note to Ryan: I understand the protein thing, but does McDonald's for breakfast really help?)

Phelps, who has 15 more races ahead this week, was happy, but clearly wasn't going to expend too much energy or emotion on the ceremony.  Still, he got a big kick out of winning in front of two American presidents, Bush father and son, and was rewarded with a thumbs-up from the flag-waving commander-in-chief. Among the other American political celebrities in the VIP section was Mitt Romney, taking a break from his Olympic-calibre groveling for the GOP VP nomination.

Given Phelps' remarkable swim, in what he says will be his final 400IM (he reportedly wants to replace it in his repertoire with the 400-meter freestyle), it came as a bit of a surprise to hear that he didn't feel very good before the race, getting cold chills in the "ready room." So while he might not have been disappointed with the result, he had arrived at the pool fully expecting to break 4:03. Phelps said he wasn't comfortable through the first 200 meters--his backstroke could be "a lot stronger," he said--until he saw that it was a cluster as the field turned for the breaststroke. "I was going to need a strong breaststroke when we all turned together at the wall. Then Ryan turned dead even at the 200M so I knew I was going to have to overpower them."

Phelps is so matter-of-fact about his extraordinary prowess that it required the rest of the swimming program to provide a reminder that all journeys do not proceed so smoothly. Katie Hoff, racing the same 400IM in what she hoped would be the first of a record-tying six gold medals, was thrashed by Australia's Stephanie Rice and and had to settle for bronze.

Gold also eluded 41-year-old "Supermom"  Dara Torres too, though she did more than her part in swimming the anchor leg in the 4X100 meter relay. Torres, however, hit the water almost a full second behind the Netherlands and, though she swam the second fastest 100 meters of all 32 relay competitors, she could only assure the silver medal.

Phelps doesn't manifest quite the wisdom of Confucius about the journey ahead, but he does have a plan: "Eat, sleep and swim. That's all I can do." Actually, Mao might have said that.