Michael Phelps' eight-gold quest came down to relying on the oldest man on the U.S. swimming team beating the boldest on the French squad. And in a race for the ages, Jason Lezak did just that.

The American barely out-touched France's Alain Bernard for the gold in the men's 4x100-meter freestyle relay Monday morning (Sunday night in the United States). The U.S. team won in a world-record time of 3 minutes, 8.24 seconds, with France second in 3:08.32.

At 32, Lezak is no Dara Torres (she's 41) but he is the senior statesman for the U.S. male swimmers. His amazing anchor meant that Phelps can continue to try to break Mark Spitz's record of seven golds, set in the 1972 Olympics. Phelps, on the pool deck watching Lezak bring it home, roared and flexed his multitude of muscles in celebration.

"We were all fired up," Phelps said of the rivalry with the French. "Jason swam one of the fastest relays of all time. His last 50 meters were absolutely incredible."

Bernard had said before the relay, "The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for."

Instead, it was the United States that did the smashing, lowering the world record of 3:12.23 that the Americans has set in the preliminaries here. Lezak's split was 46.06 to Bernard's 46.73.

"I knew I was going to have to swim out of my mind," Lezak said. "I had more adrenaline going than I've ever had in my life.

"It's an unreal feeling, because I've been part of the last two (Olympic) relays that we came in silver and bronze in 2000 and 2004. And America has a great tradition of winning that relay. We were the favorites both of those years, and this year we were actually considered the underdog. I still can't believe we all did as well as we did."

Phelps, who had swam in the semifinals of the 200 freestyle earlier in the morning here, took the first leg of the 4x100. His split was 47.51, and the U.S. trailed Australia, with France fourth, after the first 100 meters.

The Americans moved into first ahead of France on the second leg by Garrett Weber-Gale (47.02). Cullen Jones, who is a stronger 50-meter swimmer than at 100 meters, had the third leg and fell about a half-second behind France.

In fact, even when Lezak made the turn on the anchor leg, the United States still trailed by a half a body length. And he admitted with a swimmer as good as Bernard in front of him, he briefly thought he really didn't have a chance.

"Then I changed and said, 'It's ridiculous, this is the Olympics,' " Lezak said. "I got like super-charged and took it from there."

Lezak was able to turn it on enough to catch up to Bernard and grab the gold

"I jumped into the air and almost fell into the pool," Jones said. "I was really nervous that maybe I had messed up and didn't swim fast enough. But Jason said it best, that we were one unit."

The relay was the crescendo event of the morning, and gave the Americans their lone gold of the day in the Water Cube. Before that, the United States' Katie Hoff won her second medal of the Olympics, taking a silver in the 400-meter freestyle. She touched the wall just behind Australia's Rebecca Adlington, who had a winning time of 4:03.22 to Hoff's 4:03.29.

"There was a little bit of disappointment because it was so close," Hoff said. "But I got a bronze medal yesterday and a silver today. If I keep climbing up like this, I'm going to be happy."

A bit of a surprise was Christine Magnuson's silver in the women's 100 butterfly for the United States. She finished in 57.10 seconds behind the favorite, Australia's Libby Trickett (56.73).

In the second semifinal of the women's backstroke, Kirsty Coventry of Zimbabwe swam a world-record 58.77. That broke the previous record of American Natalie Coughlin, who swam in the first semifinal and won that in 59.43.

Brendan Hansen was favored to win gold, but instead he ended up without a medal in the men's 100-meter breaststroke. For Hansen, it was another disappointment in a summer that didn't work out as he'd planned.

He fully expected to make the Olympic team in both the 100 and 200 breaststroke, but struggled at the U.S. Olympic trials in the latter race. He came to Beijing in only the 100, where he finished fourth in a time of 59.57 seconds. Winner Kosuke Kitajima of Japan broke the world record with a 58.91.

"It's just been a really tough year for me," Hansen said. "Obviously, losing the 200 breaststroke at trials kind of hurt my confidence at little bit.

"I felt good going into this race. Everybody brought their 'A' game and swam really well. It's a true testament to how well Beijing has done (with its pool) to allow the athletes to perform at their peak."

And nobody did that better than Lezak.