He had just splashed his way to the very summit of the Olympic pantheon with yet another gold medal in the Water Cube but, to Michael Phelps, joining the most exclusive club in the 112-year annals of the modern Games represented a mere staging post on the unreal road to his Beijing dream.

Never mind going for eight gold medals in a single Games. What did it feel like to win his ninth title in all, equalling the all-time record for the number won by any athlete in Olympic history, Phelps was asked?

The answer, given in the classic bubble gum mode of the Baltimore Bullet, after making it three golds and three world records out of three in the 200 metres freestyle was simply: "Ooo, pretty cool."

Indeed, the 23-year-old had forgotten about his march towards history until coach Bob Bowman reminded him after the most dazzling performance yet in his 17-race, nine-day quest saw him join track athlete Carl Lewis, swimmer Mark Spitz, Finnish distance runner Paavo Nurmi and Soviet gymnast Larissa Latynina as the most golden-decked Olympians of all.

"To be tied for the most Olympic golds of all-time with those names, it's a pretty amazing accomplishment," he conceded. "I've been lucky enough to spend some time with Carl Lewis and exchange some words with Spitz, so it's an honour."

But there was no time to dwell on that when he had to get back to the Village "to catch up with as much sleep as possible" and dream about the prospect tomorrow of starting a club all of his own when he will be chasing two more titles, the 200m butterfly and 4 x 200m freestyle relay.

Phelps made his audience chuckle this lunchtime as he related how he's coping with the exhausting schedule which, today for instance, saw him smash his 200m free world record in 1min 42.96sec, attend the gold medal ceremony as he was supposed to be preparing for his 200m butterfly semi and then, about 15 minutes later, break the Olympic record in 1:53.70 even though he treated qualifying for the final like a training jaunt.

"Well, I've been eating a lot of pasta and pizza, a lot of carbs. Two massages a day, ice baths and I've been sleeping as much as I can. Every morning I've woken at about 4.30 or 5am, fallen back asleep for like an extra half an hour, then I'll get up," explained Phelps.

He made it sound like heaven because after eight races in four days, he's actually got an evening session off.

Getting up for those killer morning sessions was the worst, though.

"Takes me time to get up," he shrugged. "Yeah, but it's the Olympics, isn't it?" Yes, an Olympics which he is rapidly turning into his own pleasure dome. The last time I looked he was third in the medals table behind China and Korea!

And to think there'd been a moment during his 200m freestyle semi when he appeared to have been labouring a bit towards qualification. A mirage, naturally. Today, he had returned to his most crisp business mode in the event which had cost him his last quest for history in Athens 2004. "I hate losing," he said, suggesting that the loss had only forced him to improve this time.

So in his tidal wash, world-beaters like Korea's newly-crowned 400m champion Taehwan Park were made to resemble floundering shallow-end beginners, as Phelps's deceptively effortless stroke saw him just forge so far ahead that by the final wall he had nearly two seconds to spare over Park. He had obliterated his own world record by 0.9sec.

It is now such a commonplace event for him that he quietly raised his Speedoclad arm in triumph but didn't even bother to raise an eyebrow. Yesterday had been his day for whooping and hollering and, perhaps, raising a glass of lemonade to Jason Lezak - the team-mate who'd kept his quest alive with the sensational comeback swim to nick the 4 x 100m freestyle relay crown.

Phelps reckoned it hadn't been easy to put the emotion of that race behind him, not least because his mates back home kept texting him in the middle of the Chinese night, telling him what an unbelievable race it had been. Yet any suggestions that his 'race for eight' now seems eminently winnable was met with his new familiar Ron Manager-style response: "I take one race at a time."

Still, it even now really does feel possible that he could take eight golds and eight world records in a pool where global marks are being broken with the abandon of plates in a Greek restaurant.

The other record breaker in this morning's session was Phelps's team-mate Aaron Peirsol, who defended his 100m backstroke crown and lowered the mark he'd set in the trials to 52.54sec.

Loughborough's Liam Tancock's ran out of power and faded in the second length of that final, finishing sixth.

Only, like the duracell bunny, Phelps just never seems to run out of batteries.

"On this planet, is there anyone who can defeat you?" boomed one questioner. To which the great man just shrugged: "Don't know." Nobody knows anymore. The Olympian of Olympians is in a world of his own.