By Staff
Have you caught the Olympic fever yet? I am not going to lie to you. I think I have caught it and I think my wife has caught it as well.
I don't think we would have had it as bad until the other night and Monday night when we were watching it.
The other night, we caught the United States' dramatic come-from-behind win over the French team in the 4×100 swimming relay.
Earlier in the day, one of the swimmers on the French team quoted and made some bulletin board material for the Americans. In his quote he said, “The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for.”
Well, watching the race, NBC announcer Rowdy Gaines said he had looked over the race and analyzed and everything he came up with, he saw the French winning.
After two of the three legs, the American team led until the third and fourth leg we fell behind. But in the last 50 meters of the race, American Jason Lezak pulled it off.
The winning time: a world-record 3:08.24. Winning margin: eight-hundredths of a second. It was the closest 400-meter relay in Olympic history and the second-closest Olympic relay of any distance.
And Lezak swam the fastest 100-meter relay split in world history, a shocking 46.06 seconds. His split was faster than Bernard's by 0.67 seconds.
Can you say smashing? Take that French!
The win by the Americans kept swimmer Michael Phelps in contention for winning the record-setting eight gold medals in one Olympic games.
As of press time on Tuesday, Phelps was 3-for-3 in swimming and gold medals.
On Monday night, we watched as the USA men's gymnastic team captured their bronze medal.
After the injuries to twin brothers Paul and Morgan Hamm, the men's team was thought to be out of contention totally and now they have a medal to their name.
As of right now, we have 22 medals with seven gold, seven silver and eight bronze. The 22 medals are two more than second place China who has 20.
More close to home, football and volleyball is getting closer to starting.
The next week, W.S. Neal will begin their preseason football game and the next week, the official start of the season begins.
In volleyball, T.R. Miller begins Aug. 25 and W.S. Neal will begin Sept. 4. Our football preview will come out Aug. 27.
We are still in need of some football stringers that will help cover the games when I am at the other teams games.
Until Sunday when we meet again here or out in the world of sports, God bless.