Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay
| Men's 4×100 metre freestyle relay at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
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The medal ceremony of the event.
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| Venue | Beijing National Aquatics Center | |||||||||
| Dates | August 10, 2008 (heats) August 11, 2008 (final) |
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| Competitors | 72 from 16 nations | |||||||||
| Winning time | 3:08.24 WR | |||||||||
| Medalists | ||||||||||
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 United States (USA)Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, Cullen Jones, Jason Lezak, Nathan Adrian*, Matt Grevers*, Ben Wildman-Tobriner* |
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 France (FRA)Amaury Leveaux, Fabien Gilot, Frédérick Bousquet, Alain Bernard, Grégory Mallet*, Boris Steimetz* |
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*Indicates the swimmer only competed in the preliminary heats. |
Australia (AUS)
Eamon Sullivan, Andrew Lauterstein, Ashley Callus, Matt Targett, Leith Brodie*, Patrick Murphy*
The men's 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 10–11 August at the Beijing National Aquatics Center in Beijing, China.
The U.S. men's team dominated the race from the start but fell behind in the third leg, and came from behind to set a new world record and most importantly, to capture the elusive freestyle relay title after 12 years. Diving into the pool at the final exchange, Jason Lezak chased down world record-holder Frenchman Alain Bernard on the 50-metre final length and touched the wall first with a scintillating anchor time of 46.06, the fastest ever split in the event's history, to deliver the foursome of Michael Phelps (47.51, an American record), Garrett Weber-Gale (47.02), and Cullen Jones (47.65) a gold-medal time in 3:08.24.
France's Amaury Leveaux (47.91), Fabien Gilot (47.05), and Frédérick Bousquet (46.63) delivered Bernard a lead on the anchor by more than a half-second advantage (0.50), but Bernard's split of 46.73 was 0.67 seconds slower than Lezak's split, leaving them with silver in a European record of 3:08.32. Meanwhile, Eamon Sullivan smashed the world record split of 47.24 to hand the Aussies an early lead, but his teammates Andrew Lauterstein (47.87), Ashley Callus (47.55), and Matt Targett (47.25) could not maintain the pace in the succeeding laps to end the race with a bronze-medal time of 3:09.91.
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