Carl Lewis long jump controversy; this was because history's second 29 ft long-jumper was in the field: Robert Emmiyan had leaped at altitude in May, just 4 cm short of Bob Beamon's record. But Emmiyan's best was an leap that day, second to Lewis's . Lewis cleared four times. In the 4 × 100 m relay, Lewis anchored the gold-medal team to a time of 37.90 s, the third-fastest of all time. The 100 m final was the most talked about event and caused the most drama. Johnson had run under 10.00 s three times in the year before Rome, while Lewis
Michael Phelps in the event as well as his 4th in the Games. He became the first swimmer to win the same individual event four times, surpassing the previous record of three held by Dawn Fraser and Krisztina Egerszegi. He also became the third Olympian to win the same individual event four times, after athletes Al Oerter and Carl Lewis. With that 13th individual gold medal, Phelps broke a 2,168-year-old ancient Olympic record, set by Leonidas of Rhodes, who had held the most Olympic individual titles of all time, with twelve. In the 100 m butterfly, Phelps was defeated in his last