Phelps wins seventh medal, fifth gold

ATHENS, Greece, Aug. 20 (UPI) -- American Michael Phelps won his fifth Olympic gold medal Friday night and teammate Gary Hall pulled off a surprise by capturing the 50-meter freestyle.

Phelps defeated fellow-American and world record holder Ian Crocker in the 100 butterfly.

It was the seventh medal of the Games for Phelps, who thus equaled the number of medals won by Mark Spitz in Munich 32 years ago. But all of Spitz's medals were gold.

Phelps will go after his eighth medal on Saturday in the medley relay.

The free-spirited Hall, competing in his third and almost certainly last Olympics, wore boxing trunks and a robe onto the deck prior to his swim.

He wound up with a time of 21.93 seconds, just .01 of a second faster than Duje Draganja of Croatia. South African Roland Mark Schoeman, the top qualifier, finished third.

Japan's Ai Shibata won the women's 800-meter freestyle, rallying past France's Laure Manaudou in a time of 8:24.54. American Diana Munz took the bronze.

Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe took the women's 200 backstroke in 2:09.19. She has an individual gold, silver and bronze medal from these Games.