I missed the 4 x 100 last night. Does anyone have a link to video?
*** Update ***
Ok. That was every bit as amazing as they said it was.
Great Race
by John Cole| 37 Comments
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Great Race
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Jake
I suspect this will do?
Let me ask you something: why is it that you mock posters for not being able to embed links while you don’t seem to know how to use YouTube?
Greg
You need to install MS silverlight (Flash competitor) All events are on MSNBC’s website.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/share.html?videoid=0811_HD_SWB_HL_L0194
Punchy
As a former competitive swimmer, let me be about the 91st person to say that, yes, the hyperbole is worth it. That was, simply, the best comeback in a relay that I’ve ever seen. You just dont make up a half-body lenght with only 50m to go. Not against the world-record holder.
Just unreal.
DSB
Slightly OT, but I have to ask, did anyone else watch the USA-China b-ball game and see President Bush “raising the roof”? Really, I didn’t think I could be more ashamed, but he goes and raises the bar once again.
I really just want a president who will be, you know, presidential.
Dave
DSB,
I saw it. I thought it couldn’t get worse than his tapping his knee with the American flag in the Opening Ceremonies. I guess I was wrong.
Sam
If you either: 1. don’t have Cablevision, 2. lie and say you don’t have Cablevision, you can watch everything on NBCOlympics.com.
http://www.nbcolympics.com/video/nbcencore/index.html
(Click on Swimming Day 3 finals)
Sam
I admit, I teared up afterwards. What a race (no, I know nothing about swimming.)
jp2
The NBC site has actually been pretty tremendous. I have a crappy connection but have seen great quality stuff live and on tape as well. (Full soccer games as well – I recommend New Zealand vs. Brazil)
mamaph
I also swam competitively. I was on my feet cheering as I watched the last lap of that race. Absolutely incredible! I was also amazed that four teams were under world record pace going into the last lap. Truly exciting.
OriGuy
The women’s sabre finals were pretty intense, too. Fencing is hard for a spectator because it happens so fast. They did a pretty good job of showing the angles in the replays, although they didn’t use slomo.
PC
Pic of the day
Punchy
No, PC.
This one’s worse.
guyermo
just to give an idea of how fast that relay was, the top 5 finishers ALL broke the world record set by the Americans either earlier that day or the day previously
Tsulagi
It was, it was. Made all the sweeter by the Brie-eaters’ trash talk before the event.
USA! USA!
bootlegger
The whole comeback choked me up, but to swim the fastest relay leg ever, by .6 of a second?! Now that, was something special. Lazak blasted off that wall and got into the French Swimmer’s slipstream and actually rides his wave back even with him then just overpowers the Baguette Bragger in the last 15 meters.
If you’re the French all you can say is “how the fuck can you beat that?”
Krista
Oh for feck’s sake — the video’s not available outside of the U.S.
Is it available anywhere else? I’d love to see it….
Hawise
Try
http://www.cbc.ca/olympics/
Th CBC coverage is usually much better than the NBC coverage and includes, you know, all the nations involved.
Louise
I always love it when announcers lose their minds over an event that deserves it. I replayed that last leg 5 times just to hear them screaming.
Krista
It’s finally up on YouTube. The quality is crappy, but it’s better than nothing. I couldn’t find anything on CBC’s webpage, unfortunately.
Hawise
Try CBC Olympics- at the bottom of the current videos, click on more videos which takes you to On Demand vidoes. On the right you can choose type- go to sports, down to swimming and click. To the right will be a selection of choices. You want Mens 4×100, it is from when they walk out until it is over, a little heavy on the Canadian swimmers but good coverage overall.
Krista
Oh that is so much better! Thanks, Hawise!
gopher2b
Query:
I watched it live and the the top five finishers all broke the world record. How is this possible? Are they on the juice? This reminds me a little bit of 2003 when my grandmother starting hitting baseballs out Wrigley.
montysano
Awww, fer Chrissakes I wish I hadn’t seen that.
I’m a former collegiate volleyball player, and I’m a big May-Treanor/Walsh fan. Kerri Walsh is one of the most stunning and graceful athletes I’ve ever seen.
I guess that, if the Preznit comes calling, you smile and act nice. Otherwise….. ewwwww.
b. hussein canuckistani
Speaking as an auslander and a heretic, yeah, exciting race, but I was pretty sick of the strutting, posturing and boasting after the first 15 minutes of it. Don’t you have any athletes who can win gracefully?
montysano
Yeah, I’m with you. The testosterone-fueled bellowing was a bit much. And, although I’m no prude, I thought Michael Phelps “Hey, look at my pubic bones” semi-nudity was tacky.
See May-Treanor/Walsh above. Class acts all the way.
EddieInCA
Yeah… Ian Thorpe won so graciously…
Sheesh.
HyperIon
I watched it on CBC….infinitely superior to NBC. But I was surprised that they also showed lots of “bellowing”. Not just when the race was over but then later as a kind of re-cap.
Why do Americans think it is OK to act like an asshole? And why would Canadian broadcasters approve?
Adam
Phelps race was actually pretty crap – the USA were well behind after the first leg.
PeterJ
Answer:
The reason that they were all breaking the world record is a new swim suit, the LZR Racer. So no illegal substances but I guess you could call it technological doping (and many have).
Chris
Gopher2B —
The swimming pool is a full meter deeper, greatly reducing the turbulence you have to fight during the turn, which will speed up all the races. Also, the pool has a couple of extra lanes which reduce the waves you need to push through. Add the special swimsuits, and you’re absolutely breaking records.
Still awesome to watch.
asdf
It has to do with the pool and the new Speedo low drag suits. The Beijing Olympic pool was designed to be a fast pool, it’s deeper, the temperature is different there are gutter on the sides to absorbs the waves.
Here’s a link talking about it.
The French was the favorite to win and they’ve said the reason they came was to smash the American. With 50m to go, the French have about a body length lead which seem insurmountable and even the announcer said the American will have to settle for silver. With 25m to go the French still lead and the American caught up and beat them by about a hand length. I think as a competitor you’d have to have died of exhaustion not to be pump up and excited, cheering and watching your team mate doing what seemed impossible.
You can fault them if they were ungracious during the medal ceremony, but I don’t think you can fault them for being pumped up and excited during and right after the race when emotions are running high.
iluvsummr
Anyone know how a non-Intel Mac user (NBC’s site only supports Intel Macs) can view the 4 x 100 relay footage? I have OS X (10.4.11) and Firefox 2/Safari 3.1.2. The CBC content is apparently not available to US viewers (or at least, I can’t view it) and the YouTube video has been pulled. I do have the silverlight plugin.
bago
You need silverlight 2.0 . Apparently they
finished itgot to beta 2.1.0 dropped without out so much a real jit but more as a proof of concept. 1.1 Slammed in a real JIT.
2.0 Apparently tweaked the xaml, and then looks like they snuck in an abstraction layer between the event system and the animation system. So a lot of autogen code for events and better threading.
And of course, the big win, Isolated storage, which means you can’t use the flash indexer variant member exploit to bypass code access security, which is the primary vector for infecting a computer with a virus these days.
Apparently, ActionScript uses explicit CASPOL callouts, rather than implicit caspol callouts on a stack unwind. The EAP exploits were bad enough, but this is much worse.
iluvsummr
Silverlight 2 can’t be installed on PowerPC. I guess I won’t be viewing any of the MSNBC Olympics videos. Oh well.
b. hussein canuckistani
It must be said, he behaved much better after his third win. Maybe it was just a few bad apples on the relay team.
gopher2b
I didn’t think the celebration was that bad. It was a relay, the were losing up until the last second and they came back. If I get excited enough to fist pump in my room then the people celebrating should be given some leave to whoop it up. Besides, it was the French so they deserve it (even if they didn’t talk shit beforehand).
I can’t believe a suit makes that much difference. Wow. Another question, all the swimmers seem to swim faster underwater than their actual stroke. Is there a limit on how far they can swim underwater? I’m assuming most of the guys could hold there breath for almost the full first 50 meters.
Skippy
You know, I really wish these video format wars would get resolved. Silverlight, Flash, blah, blah. I’m on a non-Intel Mac, ain’t going to see any Olympics clips.
In a civilized world someone would scream “To hell with market-driven format wars, how about we establish a standards board, (government or industry, don’t care which) and put an end to this nonsense.
I know, we might stomp on innovation. But I’m frickin’ sick of innovation, I wanna watch some video!
Oddly enough, online porn seems to work just fine.