The men's 4x100 freestyle relay has a powerful history in American swimming. The U.S. team went undefeated for years, until they were touched out by the Aussie team with Ian Thorpe in the 2000 Sydney Games. In Athens, the Americans lost another spot and only claimed the bronze. This morning, they recaptured their glory by touching out an impressive French team and claiming the world record by nearly 4 seconds. And I witnessed it all from the pool deck.
I was positioned with Andrea Kremer again for the day. After a disappointing finish for Katie Hoff in the 400 IM (she was touched out for silver, though she was favored for gold) and a heartbreaking performance by Brendan Hansen in the 100 breast (he placed 4th and his long-time rival Kosuke Kitajima won in world record fashion), the Americans were ready for a standout performance from their relay. Michael Phelps led off the team in American record time, then Weber-Gale and Cullen Jones battled it out with the French second and third leg swimmers. By the time the American anchor, Jason Lezak, dove into the water, his team was almost an entire body length behind the French and their anchor swimmer was the world record holder in the 100 free.
At the 50, Lezak had made up some ground, but not nearly enough. I watched his teammates waiting for him behind the blocks at the other end. Three grown men -- Olympians -- screaming their brains out as they gripped onto each other in wild anticipation for Lezak to hit the wall first. With about 15 meters to go, the French swimmer started to fade, and Lezak made his move to chase him down. Lezak hit the wall just ahead of the French team to capture the gold, and I watched as Phelps and Weber-Gale erupted in excitement. Everyone in the mix zone went crazy; reporters from all over the world. The excitement was contagious. The highlight of the '04 Games was Phelps' reaction to his team's victory in the 4x200 free relay, and this moment will be the highlight of these Beijing Games. And I saw it all from the pool deck! The power, the excitement, the glory. It was all right in front of me.
I was there for the interview with the 4 guys after the race, too, and the greatest part about that was the ear to ear grins on all of their faces and the fact that it wasn't a single one of them that made that happiness -- it was all of them together. Lezak's split was the fastest in history by almost a full second.
Everyone in the Control Room back on the compound went crazy, too, apparently. Someone took a picture of everyone in the truck when the relay team won and our producer wants to have it blown up and printed for everyone on our crew. It's a crazy cool picture.I didn't do anything for diving again, and I was with Andrea once more for prelims tonight, which were short and kind of uneventful. After tonight's session, I got to sit in on a production meeting to plan out tomorrow's live broadcast of finals. Everything was so well planned out and organized, and I got to see part of the work that goes into the planning of a huge broadcast like this. These people are so brilliant.
I don't think I'll be doing much tomorrow, but it's definitely been quite the ride so far, and the swimming has only just begun. I can't wait to see what's in store for the rest of the week.
1 comment:
God, when you keep spilling out this sappy Olympic history crap you really don't give me much to work with. Tell me what YOU'RE doing, give me something to make fun of! At least it's cool that you were there for the relay, although I still say you should do something awesome to get on tv. Personally I'd say you should have run up and hugged all the swimmers during their live interview. But even something as subtle as being the creeper in the background would have worked. If I don't see your face on a tv in Houston at some point I'm going to be seriously disappointed.
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