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BGonline.org Forums
Last night's Olympic 4x100 mens freestyle relay
Posted By: Chuck Bower
Date: Monday, 11 August 2008, at 3:01 p.m.
If you didn't stay up until 11:30 PM (Eastern) to watch this you missed what should turn out to be on every post Olympic highlight show (well, except maybe in France :).
To set the stage, the French were favored and one of their team members had been quoted as saying "we're going to smash the Americans". Rowdy Gaines, a has-been swimmer from the US is the 'expert' commentator on NBC for the swimming events. Understandably he said that on paper he couldn't see how the US could win. I can accept that honesty. But he really shot himself in the foot when at the turn of the last leg (so with 7/8 of the race complete) he said that the French had it won and the US swimmer (32 year old -- old man in swimming -- Jason Lezak) needed to make sure to hold off the remainder of the field for the Silver Medal. What a dufus!
Lezak reached deeply into his aging mind+body to finish what turned out to be the fastest relay leg in history, winning by less than 0.1 seconds (which in some sporting events is quite a bit but in molasses swimming is mere centimeters). The winning time for the event was 4 seconds better than the previous world record!
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