Grevers Helps Swim Americans Into Olympic Relay Final

Matt Grevers barely needed any rest to help the Americans earn a shot at gold Sunday at the London Olympics.

Coming back less than an hour after an earlier qualifying swim in the 100-meter backstroke, the Lake Forest High School and Northwestern University graduate swam one of the four legs for the United States in the men’s 4 x 100 freestyle relay.

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The American team swam a game second to Australia in the preliminaries, finishing in a time of 3:12.59, just .3 of a second behind the Aussies. Russia, which led twice during the event, was third in 3:12.77.

Those three teams, along with quartets from Germany, Belgium, China, Serbia and Hungary, will compete for the gold later today. The finals are scheduled for 4:54 p.m. Chicago time [or 10:54 p.m. in London] and can be seen live on NBC (WMAQ TV, Ch. 5 in Chicago or streamed live on Comcast.

Grevers swam the second leg of the relay and helped propel the Red, White and Blue. He was paired in the preliminaries with Jason Lezak, James Feigen and Ricky Berens.

Feigen got the American contingent off to a good start. He moved the Americans into second place after his 100 meter swim, giving way the Grevers.  

Grevers, who had qualified less than an hour before for the semifinals of the backstroke, showed no signs of fatigue. He pushed the Americans out front, swimming 22.07 seconds for the first 50 meters and putting the Americans ahead by a half-second when he completed his 100 meter swim.

Berens briefly lost the lead to the Russians during the first 50 meters of his race, but overcame that to put the U.S. .37 ahead of the Aussies entering the final leg. Lezak still had the Americans ahead after 350 meters, but Australia’s James Magnusssen overtook Lezak in the final 30 meters to give the Aussies the early victory.

For more Patch Olympic Coverage, get the complete roundup here.