Nightswimming

So by now we know that U.S. swimmer Michael Phelps has broken the all-time Olympics record for most medals ever, with 19 (as of yesterday — Phelps has three more events to go at the summer games in London).  But many members of the media failed to point out exactly whose record Phelps had broken: it belonged to Russian gymnast Larisa Latynina, who won 18 medals between 1956 and 1964. She competed in the 1958 world championships while four months pregnant with Tatyana, keeping the news secret even from her coach, telling only her doctor.  She was in attendance during Phelps’s record-smashing performance on Tuesday. ”Latynina joked in recent weeks that it was time for a man to be able to do what a woman had done long ago” wrote the New York Times.  ”And that it was too bad Phelps was not Russian.”  (Photo: AP via the Times)

(via notquiteravenred)