Speak of the Splendor

Dear Alain,

Thank you for having the nerve to say, [regarding us, the USA men's swimming relay team] “The Americans? We will smash them.”

Without you, there is a chance we might have lost. You gave us that extra punch in the gut, that extra fire in the belly to turn in a world record time of 3:08.24, and beat you and your teamates by eight hundreths of a second.

Thank you for giving us all the more reason to scream and hug and scream again. Thank you for giving the reporters an angle to shoot their questions from.

Thank you for thinking you would smash us – it made our smashing of you all the more enjoyable.

Please work on something equally arrogant and presumptuous for the next Olympics.

Till then,
Michael Phelps, Garrett Webber-Gale, Cullen Jones, and Jason Lezak