In my opinion, as well as the opinions of many others, was the Olympic Men’s 4 x 1 free relay from last night.
It can be seen here.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=0811_hd_swb_hl_l0194&forcereload=true
Turn on your speakers and prepare to get emotional, because I’ve seen it like 6 times now and I still can’t believe how it happened!
I don’t know much about swimming but Jason Lezak’s final leg was like Aquaman. How could any human make up a half a body length in that short a period of time? Way to talk shit, Alain Bernard. Yeah, breaking the world record by 4 seconds. Also Jason Lezak went to my alma mater, UCSB!
Moving thread from IMHO to The Game Room.
I’ve been tearing up off and on watching the games, but this one made me cry. Amazing!
I’m at my in-laws house this week, and we’ve all spent a better part of our TV time watching the Olympics. Unfortunately, everyone had gone to bed by the time this race came on, so I had no one to get excited with. 
I can’t get the video to play, and I can’t find it on YouTube. Anyone know of any other sites hosting it?
You need to install SilverLight to get it to run. I doubt any Olympics coverage will show up on YouTube or if it does, it won’t last long. NBC isn’t about to allow that.
Too bad. I hate it when sites expect me to install extra crap on my machine just to watch a video that I may or may not enjoy. Why can’t they just use the standard software?
It was an incredible race, given the fact the French were so cocky as to issue a statement beforehand that they would whip the Americans.
I haven’t really settled into watching the Olympics and was channel surfing and a landed there – right before the start of the race!
I have to say that everyone forgets that Cullen Jones made up about a 1/4 body distance during his leg, even after the commentators announced he was the slowest swimmer of the four. Sure, it could have been because of the French lineup but it did make a difference.
This is not to take anything away from Jason – it was an absolutely brilliantly executed fourth leg.
An amazing race due to the setup, the result and the amazing amount of adrenaline (and childlike awe I’ve always remembered) it pumped into my body. My neighbors must have thought I was crazy, yelling, “Go, Jason! Go, Jason!! Go, Jason!!!”
I don’t know if I should wish they thought I was having sex or not.
FWIW I got the NBC video to play on my computer at home without loading any of the extra software they suggested. I just clicked “No” and the video seemed to run fine.
They really only have two options. Adobe (almost wrote Macromedia there) Flash and Microsoft Silverlight. NBC still has joint ventures with Microsoft and MS has been pushing Silverlight pretty heavily lately as a Flash alternative. I won’t comment on whether or not it’s actually a better piece of software, as I don’t know. I do know that every time I try using the plugin in Leopard it crashes Safari 3.1 (works okay in Firefox 3) and that it’s never updated properly in XP when in the Parallels VM I’m running.
I could watch this 500 times.
I made the mistake of being online before the relay aired and accidentally found out they won, and when I watched it, I saw Lezak after the turn and thought, “I must have read that wrong- how exactly are they going to win this?” Unbelievable.
My favorite fact about the relay: The Swedish team, which finished fifth, swam a faster time than the pre-race world record.
I finally watched it, thanks for the link!
Wow. Just wow. Michael Phelps face! I’m about to cry. 
It tells me I can’t watch it on a Mac unless I’ve got an Intel processor. Fuckers. I’d love to be watching some of these vids.
I know, I’ve watched it about 8 times, and I get teary eyes and excited every time even though I know exactly what happens 
“I just don’t think they can do it Dan, I mean, Jason Lezak has been there how many times in his career…I just don’t think he can do it…”
“But Lezak is closing a little bit on Bernard…”
“HERE COMES LEZAK, UNBELIEVABLE AT THE END!!! HE’S DONE IT! THE US HAS DONE IT!”
Gosh, I need to stop watching this. :’)
Every time I see it I scream at Alain Bernard to GET AWAY FROM THE LANE rope yet he never does.
I tend to cheer against the United States (I’m an underdog guy and in the pool the USA is NEVER an underdog) but this really was a heck of a race.
Me too, more or less. If it weren’t for the interminable commercials in whatever the hell show I was watching, I would have missed it.
I know it’s petty and jingoistic, but I really wanted the US team to get their medals, turns as one towards the French team, and give them the “Who’s your daddy?” crotch thrust. In your faces, froggies!
I’ve never going to get tired of watching this race.
I can’t run the video, because I use Linux, but my memory and a look at the splits - says:
Phelps - ahead of Frenchie, behind Aussie - who broke the world record, Phelps set the American record and swam the 3rd fastest 100 ever
Weber-Gale - caught by Frenchie and fell maybe 1/4 body length behind, but faster split than Phelps because he didn’t have to react to the gun
Jones - lost at least another 1/2 body length on Frenchie, partly because he had a slow into the water time (.4 seconds to the others guys less than a tenth).
Lezak - initially fell further behind the Frenchie so that it was a full body length, the Frenchie almost broke the world record for a 50 and broke the world record, Lezak smashed the record by something like 1.7 seconds (.7 is the advantage of a relay start).