KEY POINTS:
Touching the wall with 50m to go in one of the greatest swimming relay races of Olympic history, Jason Lezak had a lot on in his mind.
In the last leg of the 4x100m freestyle relay final, he was trailing France's Alain Bernard, who had been the world record holder coming into the Olympics.
Lezak's American teammate Michael Phelps' chances of making history in the pool were in his hands; and he was troubled by the thought that, once more at the Olympics, he was going to anchor a US swimming team which would come up short.
"I'm not going to lie," Lezak said yesterday. "When I got to 50 and still saw how far ahead of me [he was] and he was the world record holder ... for a split second I thought 'no way'.
"And then I changed and I thought, 'You know what? This is the Olympics and I'm here for the United States of America. I don't care how bad it hurts. I got like this supercharge."
At the end of the pool, Phelps - who had been beaten in the opening leg - and his teammates Garrett Weber-Gale and Cullen Jones were screaming.
"I was just pounding on the [starting] block, saying the F-word, and 'ah, come on'," said Weber-Gale.
With 20m to go, Lezak was closing, but it looked as if Bernard would hang on, and even as they touched the wall, all eyes had to flash to the scoreboard to see who had won.
The Americans had done it, recording 3m 08.24s, just 0.08s faster than the French and more than four seconds under the world record. The Australians in third and the next two teams were also under the record.
Phelps' second gold was secure and he roared, arms aloft. "At the end, as you could see, I was pretty excited, I was very emotional," he said.
Asked what Phelps said to them, Lezak said: "I don't think I can repeat anything any of us said to each other. We were just yelling."
Lezak said Phelps had not needed to say thank you to him or the others.
"Michael knows we did not do this for him. He was just a part of it and we were a part of it. Whether he wins eight gold medals or not, it wasn't going to be our responsibility."
Before the race, Bernard had boasted the French would "smash" the Americans. Afterwards, he was distraught, slowly getting out of the pool and unable to speak to reporters.
A French team official spoke for him: "I think he got it wrong, I think it's as simple as that.
"Sport is made up of winners and people who come second and third. Beating the world record by four seconds and still not being a winner is something, so I think there was quite a show for everyone."
One of the best.
