Jason Lezak

When I flipped to NBC the other night, I already expected Phelps to be on the medal stand with another gold draped around his shoulders. Didn't have a clue who else was on the 4X100 relay team, didn't really care. Just happened to be interested in Phelps quest for 8 gold medals. I figured Phelps didn't even need teammates, since everyone knows he doesn't swim races, he just walks on the surface from end to end holding the stars in one hand and the moon in the other. Kind of like another famous person we've all heard of.

What I did not know at the time, however, was that we were undoubtedly NOT going to win this relay, since the French team was considered the best in the land, stronger and deeper throughout their team than any other country, and anchored by Alain Bernard. When Bernard was asked about the upcoming race, he very simply said his team came to Beijing to "smash the Americans." Apparently his swimming stroke wasn't quite as fast as his mouth.

Now I happen to like France and a lot of the wonderful culture their historic civilization has provided. French toast, French bread, French fries, French braids, French kissing, and let's not forget French manicures and petticures for the ladies. Remember fellas, happy wife happy life.

However, my candor only goes so far. I hoped that Bernard wouldn't fulfill the stereotype of French people being rude, but in this case Alain was a posterchild of unnecessarily provoking and calling out the American team who had not asked for, or responded to his extremely off color comments. Obviously he doesn't fulfill the other requirements of French stereotypes, he's in the pool every day, so he doesn't stink gawdawful, ah the wonders of chlorine. And he's not hairy as all hell, since most swimmers don't even have eyebrows. So why did he have to go and shoot his mouth off?

Well I'm glad he did. The American swimmers didn't answer in the papers, they answered in the pool. And while we all thought that Phelps would be their savior, it turns out the unlikely hero of the red, white, and blue turned out to be Jason Lezak. Phelps was not even in the lead when he touched the wall, and Garrett Weber-Gale took the lead but was followed by Cullen Jones who promptly gave it back to the French by a full body length.

Then came Lezak. Trying to beat Bernard straight up would have been a tall task in itself, but the American team put him in a position of having to actually make up ground on a world record holder. It seemed impossible. Lezak had been the anchor on the last two American 4X100 teams, and had not been able to bring home the gold. He was getting too old, and even the American announcers on NBC were saying that Lezak just didn't have the ability and began recounting his earlier failures until the last 50 meters.

Those few meters will go down as something of a legend. A short distance that will be long remembered. Jason drafted off Bernard's wake the entire leg, hugging Bernard's lane and timing his Herculean effort to the wall. His time? 46.06. The fastest split ever recorded. More astonishing, if that's possible, was that he took over a second off his own personal best time. No one does that. Not at 33. Swimmer's personal bests are beaten hundredths of a second at a time. It's infeasable that this occurred, and yet it did.

Jason was the American swimmer who walked on water this day. And he had a gold medal in one hand, and his teammates in the other. I'll take that over the moon and the stars.