Another Exciting Day at the Olympics

Close to a billion people watched the basketball game between the United States in China, a game that the United States ended up winning easily, 101-70. That makes it one of the most widely-watched basketball games of all time. For comparison, just under 20 million people watched this year's NCAA national championship game in the United States.

The United States broke the world record in the men's 4x100 freestyle relay--in the prelims. However, even though they replaced their three slowest swimmers with three of the world's fastest 100m freestylers, including Michael Phelps, the French team, seeded second in the finals, was the overwhelming favorite to win. And indeed, despite a fast start by the Australians (and Phelps setting the American record in the 100m freestyle to lead things off), the French opened a wide lead over the Americans. Jason Lezak dove in about a body length behind the world record holder, Alain Bernard. With 25 meters to go, it looked as if the French would win it. And then came Lezak: he started inching closer to Bernard, came up right next to him right at the wall, and outtouched him by 8 hundredths of a second for the gold medal. Phelps now is a part of two out of the three American gold medals.

More tomorrow: my last full day in the States!