Active.com 2008 Olympics : Tags : lezak

SPOILER ALERT: the US won the 4x100 meter freestyle swimming event! Team USA out-touched its French counterpart by the slimmest of margins (.08 seconds to be exact)

http://community.active.com/servlet/JiveServlet/downloadImage/38-9526-5231/lezak300.jpg

I am fairly confident in saying that, even this early in the Beijing Olympics, the men's 4x100 freestyle relay will go down as the most memorable race of this olympics. Heck, maybe even in the entire history of the Olympics.

The French team was heavily favored to win behind their world-record holding anchor Alain Bernard. Australia was expected to snag the silver, with the US team following with the bronze. Alain Bernard, the French team's trash talking star, proclaimed, "The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for." The humble US team brushed it off as friendly banter.

It seems that Team USA also took the French team's words, let them marinade overnight, grilled them up and feasted on them for a pre-race carbo-load.

As much as I'd love to go into the finite details of this race, the video speaks for itself (watch the race here). Don't worry if you missed it or don't have the right plug-in, it'll be replayed for decades to come.

My sole purpose in writing this post is not to dictate the race or analyze the details, but rather to give credit where credit is due. This was not Michael Phelps' race, despite his near record split time. This was not Garrett Weber-Gale's race, nor was it Cullen Jones' race, who became only the second African-American to win a gold in swimming (a grand accomplishment on its own!).

This race will forever belong to 32-year-old Jason Lezak, who picked the best possible time to swim faster than any human being has ever swam 100 meters. He did so head-to-head against the 100 meter freestyle world-record holder (at the time).

You tell me...was this the most exciting event you've seen in ANY Olympics? If not, what is?