Before the 2008 Olympic men’s 4x100m freestyle relay, the French were talking. Jason Lezak was, too.
Lezak and teammates Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale and Cullen Jones gathered outside the ready room minutes before the unforgettable final on the morning of Aug. 11, 2008 (full race video here). The 10th anniversary is Friday night in the U.S./Saturday morning in China.
Lezak, the 32-year-old team captain, had something to say.
“I didn’t want to talk to the team with everybody around us,” Lezak recalled in a 2014 interview.