I used to be a swimmer. I wasn’t very good. I have nice form and all but I’m not very fast. But it’s an amazing sport. If you’ve never felt the exhilaration of coming off a really good race and realize that half the wetness on you is sweat mixed with the water of the pool than you’re seriously missing something. Or maybe not. I guess that may be a swimmer’s thing.
Anyway, watching the US pull off an upset yesterday over the cocky French freestyle relay team was unbelievable, even more so because Michael Phelps swam first and thus wasn’t the hero of the day. (Though he did get his gold and another day with a chance of kicking Mark Spitz’s record to the curb). The hero of the day was Jason Lezak who swam a race I couldn’t even believe, coming from at least half a body length behind from about 50 meters. He rocked that last 25 meters like his life depended on it. There’s a point in swimming where you lay it all on the line, throw it all in the pool and just pray that what you’ve got will be more than enough to beat the overly favored guy swimming next to you. It was almost pathetic to see the French team after the race won, adrift in disbelief while Michael Phelps ran around screaming like an insane lunatic. It was like the world had become unmoored in the space of twenty seconds.
These times, these little accomplishments, are when I’m proud to be an American. I’m not what one would call patriotic. I scoff when President Bush gives interviews with Bob Costas during Olympics coverage (Where in the world is your mind dude? America’s NOT in trouble?). I swear that I want to marry a Brit so that I can go live in that country and not have to deal with feeling like I don’t really like the country I live in. I don’t know. But when I watch an American team cruise to the finish line in that final burst of glory I want to leap with joy and scream at the top of my lungs. Because we are all American. And these are the times we can shine.
