Greatest Races in History

[Coach Tyler]

Over the next week I will post some links to some of the most exciting races I can find.

First one is the 4x100 Men's Free Relay at the 2008 Beijing Olympics. Lots of hype on this race. The French team were the slight favorites and were doing some trash talking and Michael Phelps was going for his 2nd gold medal. The pool was filled with celebrities that night to watch the race including the US president. The final was crazy fast. Canada broke the world record and was 6th. The 100 Free world record was set by the Australian lead off and 10 swimmers split faster than the world record. Canadian Brent Hayden led the relay off and missed the world record by 0.06 and was 3rd. The US anchor swam 1.44 SECONDS faster than the world record.

All of that is secondary to how exciting this race was on the last 50. If you haven't seen this race or watched it since it happened 12 years ago, take a look. Watch the reaction of the swimmers at the end of the race, probably the most intense victory celebration I have ever seen,

Here is a cool sort of directors cut of the race put together by the Olympic Channel from the French team perspective, includes graphics, interviews with the French swimmers and analysis.

[Coach Tyler]

This race was from the 2011 World Championships in the women's 200 IM. Lots of stars in the race, but the winner went to a 15 year old from China. It was such a surprise and come from behind win that the first time her name was even mentioned by the announcers was at the 198m mark of the race as the top 3 finished 0.22 seconds apart. Ye Shiwen would go on to be a star at the 2012 Olympics in London the next summer.

[Tyler Lewall]

Had to include Michael Phelps

Going to go with his 100 Fly at the 2008 Olympics. Lots of backstory to this. This is a great link to the swim going over the race, the scenario and Phelps. This was Phelps' 16th of 17 races at the meet and 7th of 8 gold medals.

US Commentary, full race, intros and post race interview

This link is the race without commentary, just the race and the atmosphere and fans in the building.

British commentary, they couldn't believe he got the touch.

Some other races

2016 200m Butterfly - this was his 5th Olympics racing this event. He started as the youngest ever finalist at 15 in 2000 and finished as the oldest at 31 in 2016. 

2009 100m Butterfly - The 100m Fly soap opera continues with this one. 2009 was a ridiculous year in swimming as swim suits became rubberized. Speedo's suit was considered inferior that summer and Phelps was told he could not win in a Speedo suit. Phelps showed up fast and angry that summer. The 100m Fly was the rematch between Cavic and Phelps from 2008. Watch the end of the race when celebrating, Phelps pulls on his swimsuit to show the world he can win in a Speedo suit.

2007 200m IM - This world championships was where he took himself from a great swimmer to the potential greatest swimmer. He had already won 10 world championships and 6 olympic gold medals. This meet he won 7 of 7 events, setting 5 world records.

[Tyler Lewall]

This is one of my favorite races ever. It is from the 2017 NCAA Championships 1650 yard Freestyle final. The back and forth battle was epic, five different swimmers led at some point during the last 400 yards of the race. A few things to pay attention to:

• The whole building on their feet cheering by the end of the race
• The top 4 all broke the NCAA record in the race
• The announcer is great (he announces most big US meets)
• The winner of the race pulled his groin 2 days earlier (in the 500 yard final) and with about 400 yards to go it got really bad, but he decided he wasn't backing down. Watch him during the last 20 seconds of the video after he finishes. He was so tired and in so much pain he just clung onto the wall, he never looked at the clock to see where he finished or celebrated, he had given every ounce of energy to the race. A teammate had to go to the podium for his award because he could not walk after the race. 

Here is the link to the race. If you do not want to watch the whole race, start at about the 10:30 mark.