The American Men's 4x100 freestyle relay team just gave the French a very painful lesson in why it's really not a good idea to talk smack:
"The Americans?" Bernard recently told the sports newspaper L'Equipe, "We're going to smash them. That's what we came for."
Bousquet looked at members of the United States team in the ready room Sunday and saw a few cracks. "They didn't look at us, although usually they do," he said. "We could sense that they were a little bit afraid."
The American Response? Beautiful.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Some of you may know that a publisher contacted me last year about turning a piece of short fiction I'd written from an adult perspective into a young adult novel. There are several reasons I wanted to do this - the first is that in many ways, the young adult fiction market is much more vital than…
Kevin is popular with the ladies....too popular...
It's been awhile since I've written anything so I decided to write up some stuff. Many cultural things have happened, but very few herps. Nearly everything is from Muyu with an occasional trip here and there.
13 July
This is where I last left off.…
The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 28
Table of Contents
Chapter 30
Chapter 29
On the Home Front, December 8, 2055
When I got home that afternoon, Edie was in a bit of a state.
"Luc, what is going on?"
"What do you mean?"
"There was a phonecall for you a while ago...from the United…
The Bottleneck Years
by H.E. Taylor
Chapter 8
Table of Contents
Chapter 10
Chapter 9
Henry, June 10, 2055
When Thursday rolled around, I rode my bike over to Fontaine Enterprises on Woodward. I arrived about a quarter to four. Matt and I sat in his office drinking coffee which wasn't ersatz…
That results page is shocking. The US team shaved 3.99 seconds off their own world record; four other teams also beat that record in the finals! What do you think--Speedo effect? :)
"We're going to smash them like guitars."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6L_jE9rAZAI
no reason to gloat: for the women 4x100mtrs the Americans and the Australians did the same, and the were beaten by the Dutch team.
No sleep for the Americans then?
If the French didn't spend so much time talking trash about the Americans before the race, you wouldn't see nearly this much gloating after it.
As far as records go, the most spectacular wasn't the overall record. It was Lezak's 46.06 relay leg. That's well over a second faster than the new world record for the 100 free, and almost a second and a half faster than Bernard's old record.
Just a couple of points:
1) I suspect there was a lot of joy in France among the 95% of people who wouldn't be made unhappy over some swimming competition.
2) I suspect as a nation, the French are still considerably fitter than the Americans.
Reminds me of a few Olympics back, I think it was in Seoul. The French were playing the Dutch in some team sport -- memory says it was basketball, but I could be wrong. French commentator early on says "comme on joue bien quand on est Français!" (1), only to have the Dutch team clobber the French team.
(1) "How well you play when you're French!
The Chinese pool is inside and quite deep. This means the water temperature can be kept close to ideal for racing, and fluid dynamic drag off the bottom is close to nonexistent.
Contrast this with the Athens pool, which was outside and fairly shallow.
Mike,
I had not heard about the verbal niceties before the race. I saw the response on TV, though, the astonishing last 50m as well as the demonstration of masculinity afterwards. I found the latter rather off-putting, more so on TV than in this photo.
Anyway, since you seem to share their sense of victory so much, I just imagine you in this posture, which has lightened my mood a lot.
Best,
Carsten
Sadly, you're not that far off from what actually happened. We're not at all a big sports family, but we do take swimming (too) seriously.
About half of me was saying, "damn, you can smell the testosterone from here." But that half was drowned out by the half that was cheering.
:-)
Well, I do understand. I am probably just bitter ;-) The gap between the German swimmers and the world elite has widened so much that among the highlights for us was Antje Buschschulte smiling after qualifying for the semi-finals with a time that was very close to her PB.
Putting all of the doubts aside, the men's relay was a great race, so congratulations to the American team and its fans!
Har har har. Great race and you should have seen the faces of the French team after they mouthed off and lost. I don't know what the women's team said. Was it "We're going to smash them"? If they did, good for the Dutch team.
Off-putting masculinity? It's a sport for fuck's sake, what did you expect them to do? There's nothing wrong with some good healthy masculinity after a productive accomplishment, as opposed to the destructive kind after beating someone up in a bar. Let's not confuse masculinity with machismo.
However, as much as I enjoyed seeing the French swimmer taste his tootsies, it is just a sport. I wonder sometimes about people who get too emotional about other people's competitions.