Swimmer Michael Phelps demolished his own world record to take a first gold this morning in the quest for an unprecedented eight wins.
Listening to hip-hop on headphones as he walked to the block, Phelps went on to win the 400 metres individual medley at China's futuristic and full-to-capacity Water Cube. His time was 1.41 seconds quicker than a previous best he set just six weeks ago.
After the first race of a thrilling morning at the pool, Phelps raised his arms to celebrate triumph in what he calls his weakest event. He was watched by President George Bush and cheered by flag-waving compatriots and thousands of Chinese.
"I'm pretty happy with that ... it was all adrenaline," said Phelps, describing Bush's presence as "pretty cool."
Even if the lanky 23-year-old with the perfect swimming physique wins only half his eight race competitions, he will hold more Olympic gold medals than any other athlete.
But he looks in great shape to match his own six golds at Athens 2004 then maybe go one further than Mark Spitz's 1972 record of seven wins at one Games.
From an Irish context, there was disappointment for Irish marksman Derek Burnett in the men's trap event at the Beijing Games this morning as he failed to progress to the final later today.
Lying 15th overnight, and with the top six making it to the decider, the Longford man harboured an outside hope of forcing his way into contention.
To do that, he would have needed a near perfect score of 50 out of 50 in the final two qualification rounds, something he felt wasn't beyond him. But Burnett's challenge wilted in the Beijing heat of as he managed to bag just 41 of the targets and slipped back to 29th in the overall standings.
Elsewhere, the equestrian team are currently 10th overall after the dressage stage. Niall Griffin is 35th in the individual standings after his 50.60 but team-mate Patricia Ryan had a morning to forget on Fernhill Clover mist, with her 78.70 leaving her next to last.
And Chloe Magee was beaten in the second round of the women's badminton, going down 21-12, 21-14 to Korea's Jaeyoun Jun.
Irish light-welterweight John Joe Joyce made it safely through the first stage with an impressive 9-5 win over Hungarian Gyula Kate after leading throughout the close contest.