I've worked two 14-hour days in a row at the National Aquatic Center (NAC). Until the swimming is done, that's the schedule. Staring at a swimming pool for two straight days is the equivalent of staring at the sun for ten seconds. Even when I close my eyes, it's burned into my brain. Not that I mind. As cool as it is to watch Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak gets an easy nod for my favorite swimmer. The NAC nearly crumbled atop the earthquake of excitement that swelled from every stroke of Lezak's arms during the men's 4x100 freestyle relay. A commentary booth of about ten Frenchmen was directly beside me, and if you've never felt ten Frenchmen go from total elation to to utter contempt in less than a second then you have not lived! Lezak harnessed eight years of dissapointment and 18,000 screaming fans to topple the French and break the world record by nearly four seconds. Four seconds! Four seconds in real time is more than ten years in aquatic time. That's how long it should take to advance a world record that much.
But here's the best part: I was so jacked up about the win that I actually skipped lunch on a fourteen hour day to go to the press conference. Phelps was the only one of the team that didn't go (it's understood that since he will have a press conference after every one of his single events that he can forego the relays). For the last question, Lezak and his team is asked this: "Has Michael Phelps even said 'thank you' to you guys?" Lezak has been training for this moment his whole life, through disappointent for the last eight years, and in his moment of triumph, how is he going to handle the focus being on the guy who's not at the press conference? Like the solid, veteran anchor of a team should. He deftly segwayed the focus back to the team. There's no need for thanks because they're all one cohesive unit. Ladies, don't hate me for advocating this one point: stop showing the uber-slow-motion replay of Phelps' 80s-jeans-ripped body whooping and give Lezak some love. Phelps is going to go down in American memory as the best swimmer of all-time. His legacy is secure. Let's focus one day on giving it up for the horse of a man that provided the best moment of the games thus far. Jason Lezak!