Lezak's phenomenal anchor leg is now the stuff of legend

BEIJING — The pictures, the time difference (.08 seconds) and the French, they will all tell you that the difference between a spine-tingling gold and a buzz-kill silver in the men's 400 freestyle relay was a fingertip.

Jason Lezak would insist it's nowhere near that simple.

No way something as miniscule as a fingertip can fully capture how Lezak pulled off one of the greatest, most significant comebacks in swimming history.

In 46.06 seconds of an awe-inspiring anchor leg, Lezak went from doubting himself and accepting a third consecutive failure to instant legend of American swimming. He thought about settling for silver and bronze in the last two Olympic 400-meter relay races, and about his speech to teammates two days earlier about sweeping the relays. He went from trailing French powerhouse sprinter Alain Bernard to using the Frenchman's lead against him. He went from the verge of retirement to reviving his career and keeping Michael Phelps' record chase alive.

And when he touched the wall first — yes, by a fingertip — he had completed the most exhilarating, painful, satisfying, historical 46.06 seconds of his career.

"People always step up and do extraordinary things at the Olympics," Lezak said.

The 32-year-old was actually referring to his competitors in the last two Olympics when he said that. He was discussing the disappointment he felt when the favored Americans fell in 2000 and 2004 to teams that pulled off the extraordinary to upset the U.S.

When Lezak made the turn for the final 50 Monday morning, the picture in front of him looked too familiar. He was behind. Maybe too far behind.

"A lot of the times in the last Olympics, it just wasn't attainable," Lezak said of making up deficits past Olympics. "I just wasn't going to catch a guy that was two seconds ahead of me."

And just like then, Lezak began this final 50 meters with the same thought floating through his head. In fact, Lezak held a quick conversation with himself immediately after turning for the home stretch.

It went like this: "There's no way.' And then it changed to, 'This is ridiculous, it's the Olympics and I'm here for the United States of America. I don't care how bad it hurts, I'm just going to out there and give it.'

"Honestly, within five seconds I was thinking all of these things. I just got like a super charge and took it from there."