The Best Year Ever 2008

The swimmer who had plunged into the pool almost .6 of a second ahead of him was Alain Bernard, a Frenchman whose absurdly broad shoulders and schoolgirl waist made him resemble an inverted triangle. Pretentious? Lui? One of the Four Frenchmen of the Apocalypse, Bernard reportedly said the week before they would "smash" the Yanks. At that moment Lezak was less in need of bulletin-board motivation than a coating of pixie dust, up against the anchor of a team that was favored to abort Phelps's eight-for-eight quest in just his second race. With 50 meters remaining Lezak had slipped to .82, about a body length, behind the man who, when the race began, was the world-record holder in the 100 free.

"As I'm flipping at the wall, I'm thinking There's no way I can catch the guy," Lezak recalled. "Typically I don't think when I'm in the water. I just swim. Not that day. I was thinking, Gotta get off the block, gotta get off the block, and then I'm thinking as I'm swimming the first 50, I really might have blown this."

Lezak still trailed by half a body length with 15 meters left, short of pool and hope. Then, brilliance. Spurred by a surge of adrenaline and a will forged by years of Olympic disappointment, desire exceeded fatigue. He inched closer and closer. Because the finish takes place below the water line, an event that might be the greatest thing you ever saw really is only half seen. When the swimmers wheeled to look at the scoreboard at the far end of the Water Cube, Lezak realized he had touched first by .08. His split was 46.06, or 0.67 faster than anyone had ever navigated 100 meters in a pool. Astonishing.

As Tyree had deprived the Patriots of football history, Lezak had preserved swimming history for Phelps. "There's never been [an anchor swim] like that in my memory," U.S. coach Eddie Reese said that morning. "Not running down somebody who's holding the world record, who's on top of their game.... It has to be in the unbelievable category. That's the biggest word I know."

SO BEFORE we tuck all this back in that foot locker where we keep Willie Mays's over-the-shoulder catch and Tom Watson's chip-in on 17 at Pebble Beach and Christian Laettner's shot against Kentucky, take a last, longing look at all the things that left you slack-jawed. In a year of excellence unbound, of Tyree and Tiger, of Rafa and Roger, of an aptly named Bolt and a Phelpsian feat, there is also a place of honor for an uncommon swim by a common man.