Jason Lezak, Jason Lezak, Jason Lezak!
What a thrilling, thrilling race! I'm bleary-eyed today from having stayed up so late to see it, but it was worth it. I'm still feeling chills over it.
"At the final turn, a thousand thoughts flooded Jason Lezak's brain, a thousand images, a thousand memories. And one awful, cold fact: the fastest swimmer in the world at 100 meters, France's Alain Bernard, had already made his flip, was at least a half a body length ahead with 50 meters to go. "I swear, all these things were in my mind in a couple of seconds," Lezak said. "And then I realized, 'This is the Olympics. Let's go.'" . . . From where the other three members of this relay team stood, they watched along with everyone else inside the Water Cube as Lezak -- self-described "late-bloomer," a 32-year-old graybeard in a peachfuzz sport -- hauled off after Bernaird, the chatty Frenchmen, for what was surely a fruitless pursuit, what was sure to be a prophesy fulfilled. After all, it was Bernard who'd proclaimed defiantly in the days leading up to this showdown: "The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for." And that's what they were surely about to do. Except a funny thing happened. That half-body-length lead? In about 10 seconds it was down to a quarter-length. And then the width of a head. And then nothing. And then, remarkably, amazingly, astonishingly, inexplicably, Lezak's fingers touched the wall, exactly 8/100ths of a second before Bernard's did. Weber-Gale exploded. Jones admitted, "I nearly fell into the pool." Phelps emitted a primal scream that tried to lift the Cube's ceiling clear off its hinges. . . "His last 50 meters were absolutely incredible," said Phelps. "He had a perfect finish." . . . Lezak covered the final hundred meters in 46.06, which is nearly a second and a half faster than the existing world record. "I've never had more adrenaline in my life," he would say. . . What drove Lezak was the silver he won in 2000 in this event, and the bronze in 2004, and a knowledge of the history of American success in this event." [FoxSports]
"At the final turn, a thousand thoughts flooded Jason Lezak's brain, a thousand images, a thousand memories. And one awful, cold fact: the fastest swimmer in the world at 100 meters, France's Alain Bernard, had already made his flip, was at least a half a body length ahead with 50 meters to go. "I swear, all these things were in my mind in a couple of seconds," Lezak said. "And then I realized, 'This is the Olympics. Let's go.'" . . . From where the other three members of this relay team stood, they watched along with everyone else inside the Water Cube as Lezak -- self-described "late-bloomer," a 32-year-old graybeard in a peachfuzz sport -- hauled off after Bernaird, the chatty Frenchmen, for what was surely a fruitless pursuit, what was sure to be a prophesy fulfilled. After all, it was Bernard who'd proclaimed defiantly in the days leading up to this showdown: "The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for." And that's what they were surely about to do. Except a funny thing happened. That half-body-length lead? In about 10 seconds it was down to a quarter-length. And then the width of a head. And then nothing. And then, remarkably, amazingly, astonishingly, inexplicably, Lezak's fingers touched the wall, exactly 8/100ths of a second before Bernard's did. Weber-Gale exploded. Jones admitted, "I nearly fell into the pool." Phelps emitted a primal scream that tried to lift the Cube's ceiling clear off its hinges. . . "His last 50 meters were absolutely incredible," said Phelps. "He had a perfect finish." . . . Lezak covered the final hundred meters in 46.06, which is nearly a second and a half faster than the existing world record. "I've never had more adrenaline in my life," he would say. . . What drove Lezak was the silver he won in 2000 in this event, and the bronze in 2004, and a knowledge of the history of American success in this event." [FoxSports]
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