Cliff Notes version of a Sparks Note version of an Olympic Update

Despite my darndest efforts not to watch the Olympics this week in order to get through my wildest workload week in a long time, I have failed miserably. Though nowhere close to having seen all that I'd like to see, I still have yet to miss a swimming race. Due to the marvels of DVR I've caught every prelim, semifinal and final heat at the Water Cube. By the way, is this not the coolest building ever?


In case you missed it, just wanted to let you see the highlight of the entire Olympics thus far:



Truth be told, rewatching this race still gives me goosebumps.

While I miss the days when the USA got gold in just about every contest, it never gets old deflating rival smack talk. Before this race, a member of the heavily favored French 4x100 free relay team, Alain Bernard, told reporters, "The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here [The Olympics] for." As only one could dream, team captain Jason Lezak pulled past the French squad (and the smack-talking anchor Bernard in particular) in the last half meter of the race, in a race where the top five squads blasted through the world record. Awesome!!

And for the suddenly Michael Phelps-obsessed and just-born swimming fans, this gave Phelps a perfect 2 for 2 in gold medals to races thus far. He racked up another gold in his 200 free yesterday as well, with a world record to boot, and now is 3 for 3.