Olympic Moment: U.S. 4X100 Freestyle Swim Relay

Hole. Y. Crap! Did y'all see this last night? One of the best swimming races of ALL TIME!!! I still have goosebumps! Watch it here.

Jason Lezak pummeled the last 50 meters of water. In the last meter of the greatest relay race in the history of the Olympics, Lezak grazed his outstretched fingertip on the wall just ahead of France’s Alain Bernard, who last week boasted of “smashing” the Americans in this event.

Fans milled around the Water Cube shaking their heads in disbelief, with dazed smiles, as if to say, Did that just happen?

Label it inconceivable, unimaginable or impossible. Just don’t expect the description to stick for long. The swimming world will be swapping out superlatives for ages on this one. Five of the teams that took part in Monday’s 4x100 relay final beat the word record set by the U.S. in the preliminary round. And the new world record established by Lezak, Weber-Gale, Jones and Michael Phelps cut 3.99 seconds off the former mark.

That alone might have made it the greatest race in relay history. But this one had the feel of a Hollywood script – the kind that would never make it to the movie screen simply because it bent reality too far. From Phelps’ second gold hanging in the balance, to Bernard’s pre-race boast, to the U.S. struggling to regain supremacy in an event it once owned, this one had the makings of greatness before the swimmers took to the starting blocks.

And just when it seemed it couldn’t get any better, the Americans and French dueled in an epic final 100 meters. A final leg that pitted Lezak — who was the anchor on America’s disappointing 2000 and 2004 4x100-meter freestyle relay teams — against Bernard, who was the world-record holder in the 100-meter freestyle going into the event.

But it was Lezak who would deliver the deepest cut to the French with the fastest 100-meter split in the history of the games: 46.06 seconds.

U.S.A., U.S.A.!! Absolutely brilliant.