Thrilling to swimming

Watching women's gymnastics, about 10:30 pm EST; not sure what's coming up next. More swimming, I'm assuming.

Sure enough, it's the men's 100M semifinals in backstroke. They go by quickly, two Americans qualify including Aaron Peirsol, the favorite. Not sure of all the results, but I don't think the Americans are having a great night in the pool. I think the Chinese have a bunch of golds today, so there's going to be a huge amount of pressure on Michael Phelps later tonight to win the swimming team's second gold.

They set up the women's 400M freestyle with a long piece, which has some weird love triangle between a Frenchwomen and an Italian, now swimming against each other. Hey, whoah--Katie Hoff's in this, I assumed based on the setup there was no American, they're totally downplaying her chances, apparently the Italian is the big favorite.

Go Hoff! It's a long race, World Record is just a tick over 4 minutes. Hmm, so far the Frenchwoman is in the lead, although she's not expected to do anything and even though she's the defending champ. Hoff's now second, nearing the halfway point. Now Hoff's moved out front, I believe; yup. Hmm, Rowdy's getting excited for Hoff's chances, me too. Apparently she's running a smart tactical race. Closing in on the last 100M, she's lengthening her lead!

Closing in on 50M left, it's so rare for the announcers to underhype an American. Lead is getting larger, last 50M, the crowd is going crazy, and I think she's going to win!

Oooh, lead is falling off,--and she's just outtouched, the non-Rowdy announcer thought she had it, but a Brit grabbed it, and another Brit took silver. Wow, so close, not even in her top event. Loses by 7/100ths!

Ah, the men's 4x100M freestyle relay is next, they set the world record in the prelim with the B team. Frenchies are the favorites though, apparently--told a paper they're going to smash the Americans. Uh, okay. Wow, so the Phelps dream could end tonight, and not via his hands. So weird that France would be the competition, not the Aussies.

Wow, Phelps first, but not a great start to my eye. The Aussies are way out front, here comes Phelps, catches him a bit but doesn't win his own leg. The pace is way faster than the WR, now the U.S. is in first coming down to the final two swimmers. Now the black swimmer for the U.S., he's being torched by the Frenchie a bit; here comes the next-to-last leg, U.S. is not going to win, Phelps' dream is pretty much over--French are just extending their lead.

Hmm, last guy is closing the gap--and oh my God, he catches him! Unbelievable! He was waaaay behind when he started, and even as they started the last 50M--but somehow he beat the fastest relay swimmer!

Rusty says that may be the most incredible relay swim he's ever seen in his life--they blow away the WR, the French are in shock. Rusty keeps saying he can't believe it, it's just not possible; it's just amazing on the replay how much time the U.S. made up on the last leg.

Wow, Phelps is going nuts on the replay, rooting for his teammate--I really think he's got to win 8 golds now, how can he not after that effort by his teammate! Jason Lezac, team captain--way to deliver. 3:08:24, wow!

Hey, it's that McCain celebrity ad, what an idiot thing to schedule during the Olympics--everyone's running on adrenaline, and this thing shows up!

Lezac coaches himself, this should be a great interview. Lezac swam the fastest relay split in history, it's fun listening to them--they're not trying to play it down, but not arrogant either. Phelps has the best look on his face on the replay as he looks up at the time and realizes they won; one of them refers to "the Frenchies talking stuff".

Wow, definitely the best moment of the Olympics so far for the U.S. Phelps is favored in the rest of his races, and the U.S. tems in the rest of the relays he swims in, so this really was the hardest one to get over for his quest.

They're going to show the tape of this one for a looooong time; what a great race. Costas, who's seemed a bit frantic the last couple of days, is in the studio with Chris Collinsworth. They exult about the race for a while, poke fun at the French, and now Chris is here to talk hoops. He is a great anaylst, but I've never seen him talk anything but football.

They talk about how gracious the Chinese fans have been, they show highlights from the U.S.-China basketball game, which I watched most of this morning. Bizarre that Yao hit a three to open the game, but other than that it was pretty predictable--U.S. wore down the Chinese, busted it open with good defense in the second quarter.

I didn't realize how popular Kobe is in China, he says it's like they're at home, the fans love the game and know the players. This is a good recap, with Kobe interview snippets woven in, he really seems sincere and not his usual careful self; given his dad's international background, I think he probably appreciates all this more than most.

Stuff like this does more to build good international relations than anything else; as Chris says, the team's been classy and dignified, to help change our basketball image abroad. He could've dropped 'basketball'.

Back to swimming, this should be a hell of a medal ceremony. U.S. hadn't lost this relay for 34 years, until 2000--Aussies; and 2004--South Africa. Oh, how sweet it is. Interesting, everyone stands in order of their racing order.

Australia's really fallen in swimming, they look happy just to get bronze. Now, the Frenchies.... Big smiles, now. The women handing out the medals to them is Muslim, wonder who she is. Ironically, her head covering wouldn't be allowed in French schools. Wonder when their swim team will have a black member like Cullen Jones.

And now--the U.S.! Man, they look so happy; 8 gold medals total for Phelps now, he goes over to shake hands with the Frenchies. And now, the Star Spangled Banner. Phelps' mom sings along, everyone is just beaming.

Back to Bob, he says people who really know swimming are calling this the best relay of all time, everyone through fifth place broke the world record!

So looking at the overall medals table, China has 6 golds to our 3; U.S. has 4 silvers to their 2, and 4 bronzes to their none.