Well, I'm sure that there would be great debate about this. Honestly, I can't ever get into the opening ceremonies besides the spectacular music from NBC (see below) and the Parade of Nations. So, I didn't find Friday night all that grand.
For me, Beijing's first magical moment was last night's 4x100 freestyle relay. The U.S. Men's team had set the world record in the prelims, but they were not the favorite in the final. We hadn't won gold in this event since 1996; before that, we hadn't lost the race in 32 years. So this is an event that we used to own, but the world is catching up.
The French were the favorites. They have three sprinters who are members of their team, all of whom have chances to medal in the 50 and 100 freestyle races. They had come out of nowehere; 7th at the Athens games, 3rd at the Worlds last year. And, they were talking lots of trash. Their anchor leg, Alain Bernard, had claimed that the French would "smash" the Americans.
And of course, there was another intriguing subplot: Michael Phelps was a member of the team that would swim the finals. In the finals they added three swimmers who didn't swim the prelims: Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, and Jason Lezak. Cullen Jones, the fourth member who had been on the prelim team, would swim the 3rd leg. This was Phelps least likely chance at a gold, the one that might preclude him from eclipsing Mark Spitz.
As they dove into the pool, something looked wrong. Phelps was swimming the lead leg, and was right at the front of the pack, but didn't give the Americans a lead like Rowdy Gaines said he would. Second was Weber-Gale, who was up to the challenge of keeping the Americans near the front of the pack. Third was Jones. He almost made the American coaches look like fools, as he fell way behind. The fourth leg was Jason Lezak, who is 32 and has seemingly been an Olympic swimmer forever. He was swimming fast, but the French lead was about a body length, which was just too big; wasn't it?
As he made the turn, I got up off of my feet. I was standing, hoping for a comeback so that Phelps' dream would still be alive. Rowdy Gaines started saying how Bernard was tightening up, and slowing down. In the last 20 meters, Lezak started to make his move. At 15 meters, he was about a half a body length behind. At 10 meters, I started jumping up and down, screaming for Lezak to finish it off. At 5 meters, he had pulled within a foot. At this point...I was really wishing that I was watching it with someone else, because I was so excited. They touched the wall, and it took a second for people to realize it, but Jason Lezak and the rest of the team started reacting, and it was just...it was great.
I started screaming, yelling at the arrogant French, celebrating with this huge American victory. It was such a thrill to watch this comeback. I talked to my friend Hemant afterwards, who said that all the guys in Knoxville (Hemant, Jamie, and Colin) were going nuts too.
Like I said, the first magical moment of the Games.
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3 comments:
That WAS a great moment and worth staying up for. I'll admit to giving up on our team during that third swimmer, as it seemed just impossible for us to catch up. When it looked like the fourth swimmer might actually catch up, Dan and I jumped up in bed yelling and screaming stuff like "We smashed those French fries!" It was just great. And the team's reaction was priceless.
Luckily the boys slept through our raucus celebration!
Since I had a 3:45 am wake up call, I did not stay up. But I was able to relive the excitment through your blog. Get on a plane to China and help Costas out! You are missing your calling :)
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