Jason Lezak Saves The Day

Jason Lezak plunged into the water and fished out a gold medal for USA.

Ambrose Aban
Chief Blogger, QueerGam

For the first time since Sydney and Athens, newscasters, commentators, bloggers and all the journalists covering Beijing are calling Jason Lezak the lead hero of the 2008 Beijing Games. Lezak finally stole the show from not just Michael Phelps and the NBA's Dream Team in Beijing, but also from the world's fastest swimmer in the 100M freestyle, Alain Bernard, of France. Jason is now the Water Cube's biggest and brightest star and also on the Internet. The Americans had lost the 4x100m freestyle relay to Australia and South Africa at the last two games, having previously won it seven straight times.

But tonight Jason Lezak, right, won it down the stretch for America in the greatest and the best of style, reasserting the tradition for this most coveted Olympics swimming event.

The song by American Idol, David Cook, "This Is The Time Of My Life" played at the close of the nightly coverage on NBC tonight, couldn't be anymore appropriate to describe the best time of Team USA at the Cube. The water was boiling big time! The scream from the crowded Cube was deafening. You couldn't hear the announcers at times. It was a sensational finish that could not have been anymore wilder. It was as nail-biting as any of Zhang Yimou's movies. It was an amazing come-from-behind win.



It was that close between gold and silver. Alain Bernard was just a fingertip and a hair away at the finish. For France, it was a cruel 8th/100th of a second but for our boys it had to be their most explosive and blissful orgasm ever in the water. It was the very Olympics moment the world have been waiting for, and bloggers like us have been dreaming a moment like that, sleeping very very late for that kind of moment to come since Friday.

And Jason Lezak provided that moment. He was the difference -- the difference between being a great Olympian and being just a world-class swimmer.

Alain Bernard, croissant for you?

From the start of his turn at the 350 meter mark of the race, Lezak didn't look like he was going to get even near Bernard but he caught up with the cheers and screams from his President, First Lady and the crowd, stroke by stroke, inch by inch, breath by breath, and in the last 10 meters of the men's 400-meter freestyle relay, he edged closer and closer and by a blink of an eye he equaled his speed with Bernard only to touch the wall first by a breath, giving Michael Phelps a bigger chance to realize his dream.

Gold for the Americans. Yes it was a snatch. It was, really. It is so hard to say they were better than the French. It was a snatch and that was the thing we are talking about -- the difference.



The difference is Jason Lezak, and nothing else. Not even the 3 minutes, 8.24 seconds world record they just created. When Lezak stretched to touch the wall ahead of Bernard -- beating him by just .08 seconds -- Phelps clenched his fists and flexed, letting out a scream that was muffled by the deafening crowd noise in the packed Cube. For Michael, two most tricky events are out of the way.

Jason Lezak took care of that tonight.