The 4x100m mens freestyle relay at the Beijing Olympics was a thriller! The Americans were at least a half body length behind the French with less than 50 meters to go. When CBC commentator Bryon MacDonald shared that Alain Bernard, swimming the final leg for France, was the world record holder for the 100m freestyle* I figured it would be all but impossible to catch him.
Was I in for a surprise! American Jason Lezak propelled himself forward and out-touched Bernard for the gold medal and a world record. MacDonald said that Bernard swam the last 50 meters right next to the lane marker shared by Lezak. This is a major mistake for a high caliber swimmer. It allowed Lezak to draft, expend less energy, and then explode by Bernard.
For those techies out there, in 1998 Chatard and his coworker calculated that a swimmer could take 9.5 seconds off their time over 400 meters if they drafted behind another swimmer. (Swimming Faster by Ernest Maglischo) That's a lot of time!
Back to Phelps. Two gold medals for Phelps and two world records.
* The world record was broken by Australian Eamon Sullivan in the first leg of the relay. Coming into the race Bernard was the world record holder.