8 Is Great, but Now What?

Michael Phelps completed his unlikely and unparalleled quest for eight gold medals last night. Oh, and by the way, there's another week left in the Olympics.

Now that the men's 100m record was again shattered by Usain Bolt, who could have done a cartwheel over the finish line and still posted the fastest time in history, what's left? Yeah, there's the men's 200m, anyone think Bolt isn't going to win that one? There's Jeremy Wariner in the 400m, but have you heard a peep about him from the press? (Besides the feature in ESPN the Magazine's preview issue that is ... )

To date, and perhaps deservedly so given the historic implications of the achievement, these Olympics have been all about Phelps, all the time. But now that his story has been written, there feels like there's little left to get excited about.

Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of great athletes yet to come, but the way NBC has covered Phelps, he's left everyone else in his wake. Will viewers give those who have yet to compete a chance to catch up? Or will they change the channel?