Today Hot Report

Veteran U.S. Olympic swimmer Jason Lezak, 32, delivered a blistering anchor leg to win the gold for the U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay August 10 in Beijing, China. Lezak’s closing leg (46.06 seconds) was the fastest relay split ever, securing the gold for his team and setting a new world record for the event.

The U.S. 400-meter freestyle relay team of Lezak, Michael Phelps, Cullen Jones and Garret Weber-Gale came from behind to win the exciting race, upsetting France, whose anchor, Alain Bernard, had brashly vowed to “smash” the U.S. team in the days preceding the race.

Lezak trailed Bernard–who started the day as the world record holder in the 100-meter freestyle–by half a body length when the two swimmers turned from the final wall. But Lezak slowly closed the gap, reeling in Bernard an inch at a time, and he out-touched the Frenchman by eight-hundredths of a second to win gold in a world-record time of 3 minutes, 8.24 seconds.

“When I flipped at the 50, and saw how far ahead he was, knowing he was the world record holder, for a split second a thought crossed my mind: There is no way,” Lezak said. “But I said ‘You know what? This is ridiculous. This is the Olympics and I’m here for the United States of America. I don’t care how bad it hurts.’ Honestly, in like five seconds, I was thinking all these things. I just got like a super charge and just took it from there. It was unreal.”

Lezak’s closing leg (46.06) was the fastest relay split ever, and it kicked off a celebration by Phelps and the rest of the Americans that can best be described as four men going crazy with joy.