Relay Stunner Keeps Phelps’ Dream Alive
posted: ONE MINUTE AGO
filed under: Olympics
BEIJING (Aug. 10) – With history about to slip away and Michael Phelps cheering him on, Jason Lezak pulled up next to the lane rope and set out after hulking Alain Bernard, like a NASCAR driver drafting down the backstretch at Daytona.
Only 25 meters to go, half the length of the pool. Every stroke brought Lezak a little closer, a little closer, a little closer, his body seemingly carried along by the Frenchman’s massive wake. The two lunged for the wall together. When the result flashed on the board, Phelps was still on course for his record eight gold medals.
By a fingertip.
Lezak, the oldest man on the U.S. swimming team, pulled off one of the great comebacks in Olympic history Monday morning, hitting the wall just ahead of Bernard in the 400 freestyle relay, a race so fast it actually erased two world records.
Few sporting events live up to the hype – this one exceeded it. The 32-year-old Lezak was nearly a body length behind Bernard as they made the final turn, but the American hugged the lane rope and stunningly overtook him on the very last stroke.
Wow!
Here is the full story.
Truly an amazing performance by the Americans.
I would offer the ‘smash them like guitars’ win as a better win 🙂
While working on my statistical chess performance-testing program (which had to be overhauled last month) last night, I had it on in the background. I thought, “should I record this for my family?” Inertia and C++ debugging kept me from switching on the recorder, but I watched. Halfway thru the last leg, with Bernard pulling away almost a body-length, I thought “just as the announcers expected—and not so exciting—so just as well not recorded”. The last 10 seconds left me awe-struck!
Mais alors, si je fusse franCais, j’eusse des autres emotions…but it’s easy to experience that feeling. Just turn on the last minute of injury-time of the USA-NED soccer match, in which the USA “wall” jumped up to allow the tying goal to zip under their legs! It looks like a Monty Python soccer sketch. Now a loss to Nigeria while NED beat Japan will send the USA team home early.