There was Harrington at the U.S. Open, the spectacle that was the opening ceremony of the Olympics in Beijing, the "redeem-team" taking it to the men's Chinese Olympic basketball team, and of course more Favre - who cares? All of these events took a distant 2nd to last night's event. If you didn't stay up to watch the Olympic men's 4 X 100 relay last night you missed the most exciting sport's moment all weekend.

The U.S. Men's 4 X 100 Relay team went into to last night's event as the underdog. The French relay team was the team to beat in last night's event and they knew it. France's 4 x 100 relay team anchor and world-record holder in the 100m freestyle. Alain Baird said to the national media, "The Americans? We're going to smash them, that's what we came here for."

Michael Phelps, the first leg of the U.S. 4 X 100 team, cut out that article the article including the Bernard "smash" quote and kept in his locker leading up to this event. "We didn't react to it," Phelps said. "It just got us fired up."

Phelps, the U.S.'s golden boy, needed gold in this event to maintain his quest for 8 gold medals and break Mark Spitz's record of 7 gold medals in an Olympics. However, it was Phelps who needed the American anchor leg, Jason Lezak, to bail him and the American relay team out for a chance at the gold.

The U.S. team swam in lane four while the French swam right next to them in lane 5. Going into the last leg of 100 meters the French and their world record holder Baird had the lead on the rest of the swimmers. When the last of the U.S. team, Lezak made his final turn for the last sprint lap Baird was already half a body length ahead.

With the Olympic crowd on the verge of meltdown watching the last leg Lezak, determined to not quit closed the gap. "I changed," he said. "I thought, 'That's ridiculous. I'm at the Olympic Games, I'm here for the United States of America. I don't care how bad it hurts, I'm going after it. I just got a super charge."

Phelps and the rest of the relay team aggressively cheered on their teammate on to finish in the remaining seconds of the race. Lezak and Baird in their final strokes peered at each other through goggles to see where the other was, a blink before both touched the wall for the climactic finish.

The winning time: a world-record 3:08.24 by the underdog U.S. Men's team. The winning margin over the favorite, the French: eight-hundredths of a second. Which happened to be the closest 400-meter relay in Olympic history and the second-closest Olympic relay of any distance.

U.S. gets the gold and Phelps maintains his quest for 9. Saved by an unlikely hero, a 32 year-old swimmer who trains himself - John Lezak.

"People always step up and do things out of the ordinary at the Olympics," Lesak said.