American swimming marvel Michael Phelps won his third gold medal at the Beijing Olympics with another world record swim in the 200 metres freestyle final on Tuesday.
The 23-year-old world champion smashed his own world record by 0.90sec in a time of one minute 42.96 seconds.
It was his ninth Olympic gold medal overall after he won six at the 2004 Athens Olympics.
Phelps is bidding to win eight golds at a single Games and beat the 1972 record of seven set by American Mark Spitz.
South Korea's Park Tae-Hwan won the silver in an Asian record of 1:44.85 with American Peter Vanderkaay third in 1:45.14.
"That's great. I just wanted to be out on my own which I had done by the 100 metres mark, that was my goal," Phelps said.
"I was out in open water and I was in the middle, which makes it difficult for the other guys to see me. I knew Park would have a strong last 50 metres, so I had to keep my focus and concentration."
Phelps won the 200m freestyle event which eluded him in Athens when he was a bronze medallist behind Australian Ian Thorpe.
He won his other two gold medals in the Beijing pool in the 400m medley and 4x100m freestyle relay.