Phelps's dream stay alive!

Jason Lezak churned like an unstoppable nuclear submarine, redlining to complete an impossible mission.

He pummeled the last 50 meters of water, dilating fans’ pupils and scorching their veins with adrenaline and sucking their torsos forward in their seats. He churned straight for Garrett Weber-Gale, who was cursing and howling and pounding on the starting blocks. He charged toward Cullen Jones, who jumped so frantically that he almost slipped and fell into the pool. And he roared past U.S. coach Eddie Reese, who was being squeezed nearly to death by one of his assistants.

And in the last meter of the greatest relay race in the history of the Olympics, Lezak grazed his outstretched fingertip on the wall just ahead of France’s Alain Bernard, who last week boasted of “smashing” the Americans in this event. When Reese tried to capture the moment later, he thought for a second and shook his head.

“It would have to be in the unbelievable category,” he said. “That’s the biggest word I know.”

That sounded about right, as fans milled around the Water Cube shaking their heads in disbelief, with dazed smiles, as if to say, Did that just happen?

Label it inconceivable, unimaginable or impossible. Just don’t expect the description to stick for long. The swimming world will be swapping out superlatives for ages on this one. Five – five – of the teams that took part in Monday’s 4x100 relay final beat the word record set by the United States in the preliminary round. And the new world record established by Lezak, Weber-Gale, Jones and Michael Phelps cut 3.99 seconds off the former mark.