Mr Phelps is over the moon as USA win thrilling 4 x 100m freestyle relay

August 11, 2008

For a while it looked like Michael Phelps was not going to have a chance to win his eight Olympic swimming gold medals in Beijing.

France were the surprise leaders with just metres to swim in the exciting 4 x 100m men’s freestyle relay final. USA’s Jason Lezak swam an amazing anchor leg recording 46.06 to swim past France’s Alain Bernard in what was almost the last stroke. The winning margin was just 0.08

USA smashed the world record they set yesterday swimming 3:08.24 in today’s final. The previous world mark was 3:12.23.

Micheal Phelps swam the first leg for the USA and was second with a time of 47.51. Next up was Garrett Weber-Gale who swam 47.02. The third swimmer for the USA was Cullen Jones swimming a time of 47.65.

In a good showing for his individual swim Australia’s Eammon Sullivan broke the world record with a time of 47.24.

Australia took the bronze medal 1.67 seconds behind the USA team

Australia's 4 x 200m women claim gold and smash world record

Written by rob · Filed Under Swimming, swimming beijing olympics