Even people who dismiss the Olympics as a corporate hype machine would be hard-pressed to cast doubt over the passion and the emotion present in the United States' victory in the men's 4x100-meter freestyle relay swimming event yesterday.
Jason Lezak's charge down the stretch and record anchor leg saved the gold for the U.S. and preserved Michael Phelps' quest for eight individual gold medals in Beijing, a record that nearly went down in flames on the second day of the games. There were plenty of NBC executives and sponsors biting their nails while France's Alain Bernard held the lead in the race with as few as five meters to go. All of their promotional campaigns and coverage geared toward Phelps was about to go up in smoke until Lezak set a world record with his split time over the 100-meter distance, catching Bernard with literally his final stroke.
Lance Armstrong used to give his teammates all of his prize money after he won the Tour de France, an event that he captured seven straight times. Armstrong was the one that they all suffered for, fetching water and food from the team cars, sheltering him during the flat stages from the wind and the rain, pacing him up the mountains with savage tempo riding that cracked the rest of the field. He was the man who had all the big corporate dollars in his back pocket, and he treated his domestiques well. Phelps, who reportedly will receive a seven-figure bonus from Speedo if he breaks Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in a single games, should give some thought to handing Lezak a cut of the dough after a performance like that.
I was watching all of this in a bar after my baseball game last night with my boy Hevy, his girlfriend Krista and our coach. The three of them all admitted that they know zero about swimming, but their eyes were glued to the screen throughout the three-minute race that stands as the early highlight of these games. They were into it as much as anybody could have been, interested because there were Americans involved in a competition for nothing more than national pride (and some money from Speedo, Nike, Gatorade, etc.). The Olympics are one of the few things that can actually unite a nation that celebrates independence, cultural diversity and freedom of choice like the U.S. does, and the games are a time every two years where the masses tune in and watch athletes do battle in their name. Only moments of great triumph and tragedy (think Sept. 11) are able to unite this country because we as a society are usually too involved with our own lives to stop and take a look around.
So let's stop for a moment today and find out just a little bit more about Lezak, a grizzled veteran of international competitions who saved his best for when his team truly needed it. I've had swimmers tell me that they swim better in relays because they feel the pressure of not letting their teammates down, and Lezak's time of 46.06 was almost two seconds faster than his own American record over the same distance as an individual. It was a reminder that truly elite athletes are in some ways like thoroughbred horses, trained and driven by something unseen to chase down anything that's in front of them and possessing an almost unnatural ability to pull something out of themselves when challenged by an opponent who is faster or stronger. All the evidence of this that you need is that five teams broke the existing world record in the 4x100 final in Beijing, driven by improved technology (Speedo's LZR racer suit), years of training and the heat of the competition.
What made this event even more delicious was the presence of a natural villain, something that Americans need to truly care about something. Bernard's comments that France was going "to smash them (the Americans)" in the race and his subsequent choke job down the stretch added another layer of drama and spoke to our collective psyche. We talk about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan in terms of winning and losing, of good and evil -- it's a good look into our mindset as a nation. Nobody is a winner while people are being killed on the battlefield, but that's what we need to believe in order to allow it to continue. We have to think that we're on the side of right and not necessarily the aggressors in such a conflict. We have to feel like we're saving somebody or trying to make somebody's life better.
Athletics are the same way for us -- we all disliked Bernard instantly when he made his statements, forgetting the fact that he and his teammates certainly didn't travel all the way to Beijing to lose the race. They trained for it just as hard and made just as many sacrifices, and it would have been foolish if any of them felt defeated before they even took the starting blocks just because Phelps was on the other team. Of course they expected to win. They just didn't. And even five people in a bar half a world away took some pride in that.