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PARIS — The men’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay world record is one of swimming’s oldest, and it could go down Saturday. 

The world record dates back to the 2008 Beijing Olympics when American Jason Lezak became a national hero by swimming the greatest relay leg ever, overtaking the French team at the very end to win gold — one of Michael Phelps’ historic eight from those Games.

But after watching the men’s 100 freestyle at the U.S. Olympic trials in June, Lezak predicted the 4×100 free relay world record will fall at the 2024 Paris Olympics, saying someone will take the lead and never look back. 

Cullen Jones — who swam third on the relay before Lezak’s epic anchor leg — agrees. 

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“I think this is the year,” Jones told USA TODAY Sports about the 16-year-old world record. “I got to see Phelps in trials, and we text from time to time. But I’m like, ‘The 4×100 [freestyle] relay is looking like it’s in peril with these four guys.’”

Those four guys are Team USA’s Caeleb Dressel, Jack Alexy, Chris Guiliano and Hunter Armstrong, who are expected to compete in the fastest relay in the pool, possibly with the help of Ryan Held and Matt King in prelims. Alexy and Guiliano are also expected to compete in the individual 100 free. 

Prelims for the 4×100 free relay are Saturday midday (about 6 a.m. ET), and finals are that evening (about 3:45 p.m. ET). 

“We’ll see what happens,” Jones said. “I think that they’re gonna definitely be a shoe-in for first, but let’s see if they can break that record.”

The world record — set by Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, Jones and Lezak — is 3:08.24 with the first three posting times in the 47-second range before Lezak’s stunning 46.06 split. 

The U.S. owns five of the six fastest relay times ever with France’s 2008 silver medal-winning team at No. 2. The third fastest was Team USA’s gold medal win led by Dressel at the 2021 Tokyo Olympics, posting a time of 3:08.97. 

“I don’t think we should shy away from [the relay world record],” three-time Olympian Dressel told NBC Sports at trials. “I think [the] world record is 47.3 average. We have a shot at it. That’s unbelievably fast.” 

At trials, the top-6 finishers in the 100 free were all in the 47-second range and within .56 seconds of each other.

But if any team breaks the world record, Jones is confident it’ll be the Americans. 

“I don’t know how [Team USA men’s] coach [Anthony] Nesty is going to set it up and how that line up is gonna go, but you might see it go down,” Jones said, adding, “[Phelps] was like, ‘Well, yeah, it doesn’t look good for us.’”

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PARIS — The press conference moderator said it best: ‘Welcome to an Olympics first: A Flavor Flav press conference.’ 

And it only got weirder from there. 

The 65-year-old rapper is here at the Games as the official hype man for the U.S. water polo squads, after three-time gold medalist Maggie Steffens put out a call on social media asking for financial help, a testament to the reality that many of the athletes self-fund their Olympic journey.

Surely she did not expect a founding member of rap group Public Enemy to answer the call, but here we are. 

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‘I’ve been really empowered by other women in sports to use your voice, which can be a little scary at times,’ Steffens said earlier this week. ‘And I was calling for people to know my teammates and challenging them and empowering them to follow some of the more niche sports this Olympics, especially women’s. And if it’s not water polo, rugby or fencing … just to give those women, those teams, a chance.

‘And Flavor Flav saw that and something about it sparked his interest … He has really opened the door for people to learn about our team and different communities, different people who would have never heard of water polo. And that’s exactly what sports like us need. He’s been really great at shining any light back on us, and we look forward to having him here in Paris and just keeping that positive energy going.’

Friday morning, Flav − whose given name is William Jonathan Drayton Jr. − met with an amused and intrigued group of reporters for an official introduction to the 2024 Olympic Games. 

‘This is an honor, and this is a pleasure and a perfect measure − and I’m gonna keep this memory as a perfect treasure,’ Flav said.

To be clear, Flav has no background in water polo, though he said ‘back in the day, growing up, I was one hell of an athlete,’ playing neighborhood baseball, basketball and football. Fact checking was not available for this claim. 

‘I recently got in the pool and got to learn how difficult that water polo is,’ said Flav, who was decked out in a Team USA jersey, water polo cap and his signature clock necklace (a waterproof version, of course). ‘I was in the water for seven minutes, treading water for seven minutes, boy that was the hardest seven minutes of my life! But the girls said I did good.’ 

He even scored a goal on Ashleigh Johnson, widely considered the best water polo goalie in the world. Who knew he had it in him? 

Flav was honest that, like a lot of Americans, he knew next to nothing about water polo before taking on the role of sponsor; he’s signed a five-year contract with U.S. water polo, but details of the deal have not been disclosed, and he declined to elaborate on Friday. But he’s all in now, even helping the team score tickets to Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour Paris stop (he is, evidently, known as ‘King Swiftie’ in the music community).

He’s also committed to continuing to promote the team, and the sport, long after the Paris Games have concluded. 

He wants to make it clear, however, that while he is new to the sport, he has no time for mediocre results. 

‘Right now I count three stars on my cap,’ he said, a reference to the last three gold medals won by the U.S. women. ‘I want to see a fourth.’ 

Were he at the Olympics as a competitor, Flav thinks it likely would have been in track. 

‘What would I be best at? I’m gonna say the 200 meters,’ Flav said, before reversing course. ‘Well, I’m going to say the 100 meters. I’m 65, I don’t think I could run 200 meters.’ 

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U.S. sprinting star Noah Lyles, who is expected to contend for medals in both the 100 and 200, was unavailable for comment or reaction.

Strangely enough, Flav is not the only U.S. rapper at the Paris Games: Snoop Dogg is here to both offer commentary (he ‘worked’ the track trials last month) and carry the Olympic torch during its final leg through Paris. And should he decide to find time to hop in the pool, Flav said he would anoint Snoop the captain of his rapper-only water polo team. Pharrell Williams would be the coach and ‘you could put Flavor Flav in the water as one of the star players!’ he said enthusiastically, referencing himself in the third person. 

He did not say who else would be on the roster, but surely his peers will be weighing in on social media in the coming weeks. Where is Chuck D, the other member of Public Enemy, and does he have anything to say about this? 

Flav hopes to get to gymnastics − he, like nearly everyone else here, is a big Simone Biles fan − basketball and track while he’s here, but water polo is his first priority. He said he plans to send all the water polo players and their families on a cruise after the Games, and that he has ‘a special gift’ for them at the end of their competition. 

But has he prepared a special song for his new favorite group of athletes? 

‘I’m gonna go home tonight,’ he said, ‘and write something.’ 

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PARIS — An Australian field hockey player chose to have part of his finger amputated in order to compete at the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Matt Dawson, a 30-year-old defender for the Aussies, said on a podcast that he suffered a gruesome finger injury during a practice match earlier this month. Rather than wait for the injury to heal, he opted to have the ring finger on his right hand amputated just below the top knuckle – in part because doctors said it would allow him to return within 10 days, in time for the Olympics.

‘I’m definitely closer to the end of my career than the start – and, who knows, this could be my last (Olympics),’ Dawson said on the Parlez Vous Hockey podcast last week. ‘If I felt like I could still perform at my best, then that’s what I was going to do. If taking the top of my finger was the price I had to pay, then that’s something I have to do.’

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Dawson said the nature of the injury meant he had to make a quick decision on amputation. He decided to go ahead with it, then called his wife, who cautioned him not to make ‘a rash decision.’

‘With all the information I had to make the decision, in a pretty short period of time, I still decided to take it (off),’ he said on the podcast. ‘I can still have a pretty good functioning life, with just a little less finger to worry about.’

Dawson’s decision stunned and impressed some of his teammates, including Aran Zalewski, who said in a news conference in Paris that ‘we didn’t really know what to think.’

‘We heard that he went to the hospital and chopped his finger off, which was pretty interesting,’ he said. ‘I know people would give an arm and a leg and even a little bit of finger to be here sometimes.’

‘Full marks to Matt,’ added Australian men’s field hockey head coach Colin Batch, according to Reuters. ‘Obviously he’s really committed to playing in Paris. I’m not sure I would have done it, but he’s done it, so great.’

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Dawson, who also competed for Australia at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro and the 2021 Tokyo Games, said he considers himself fortunate. He said so many athletes suffer devastating injuries right before the Olympics and don’t have any physical way of recovering in time. He counts himself lucky that he had a choice.

‘Fingers crossed we get the gold in the end,’ Dawson said. ‘It’s not a really big price to pay then, is it?’

Contact Tom Schad at tschad@usatoday.com or on social media @Tom_Schad.

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PARIS − Hours before the opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics on Friday, France’s national train service said it was targeted by several ‘malicious acts’ that caused disruptions to its high-speed lines.

‘Arson attacks were started to damage our facilities,’ SNCF said in a post on X.

The fires were caused by vandalized signal boxes and electricity pylons at several rural locations outside Paris. But they had a knock-on impact on services at some of the capital city’s main train stations.

The incident comes as French and international security officials have rolled out an extensive security operation for the Olympics involving tens of thousands of police and military personnel on the streets.

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The rail service said that up to 800,000 passengers were disrupted by the ‘massive attack,’ and it asked them to postpone trips. SNCF said the incident was aimed at ‘paralyzing the network.’

SNCF said some overhead cables were cut and burned in what it called an act of ‘sabotage.’ The Paris prosecutor’s office opened a criminal investigation. There were no immediate claims of responsibility.

One line hit by the attack was between Lille and Paris, a city in northern France where preliminary games of men’s and women’s basketball and handball knockout stage games are being played.

Jean-Pierre Farandou, SNCF’s CEO, told French media that at least two trains that were interrupted were carrying Olympic athletes on their way to the Games’ opening ceremony.

Farandou characterized the incident as a ‘premeditated, calculated, coordinated attack.” He said railway maintenance workers thwarted a suspected sabotage attempt along tracks heading southeast of Paris.

Eurostar trains running between London and Paris also were disrupted. Other international train routes into France from Germany were experiencing delays.

The U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committee said no American athletes were affected by the train disruptions because they were mostly traveling on buses. SNCF said there could be delays through the weekend.

French and international security officials are on high alert for disruptions to the Olympics. In a Games first, the opening ceremony was set to take place later Friday outside, along the river Seine. France’s capital was in virtual lockdown, and intelligence gathering on extremist plots and cyberattacks has been boosted.

Organizers also have prepared for the possibility of civil unrest.

French Prime Minister Gabriel Attal warned those responsible that they would face lengthy jail time and substantial fines. In an appearance at the Olympic Village, where athletes are staying, International Olympic Committee President Thomas Bach said he didn’t have any concerns and had ‘full confidence in the French authorities.’

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SAINT DENIS, France – As she prepared for the 2024 Paris Olympics in hot gyms that lacked air conditioning and often went long stretches without power, Ukrainian fencer Olena Kryvytska sometimes had to stop her training mid-session to take cover in a bomb shelter.

‘Sometimes it can be very often, sometimes more rare,’ Kryvytska told USA Today Sports.  

Such has been the life for athletes in the Ukraine for more than two years, since Russia invaded the country in 2022.

Russia is banned from this year’s games, though athletes from the country are allowed to compete as Individual Neutral Athletes, or AINs for short.

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Ukraine’s delegation includes 140 athletes, and whatever success they have will be shared by the country in what remains a trying time.

‘For us, a gold medal in this Olympics, I think it will be gold medal for all our countries,’ said Tetiana Kurtain, head doctor of Ukraine’s national Olympic committee. ‘Especially our military men.’

Kurtain spoke to USA Today Sports at the Olympic Village on Thursday as she stood in front of a window at the team’s housing unit decorated with dozens of pictures drawn by Ukrainian children and brought to Paris to support the athletes.

One picture, from a student at School No. 78 in the capital city of Kyiv, showed a fencer standing alongside a soldier with words Kurtain translated to mean well wishes for the country’s sportsmen and good luck, strength and safety to its soldiers.

‘For our sportsmen of course this is so hard, the games, because we have a very special situation in our country,’ Kurtain said. ‘Mental health is very strong and they very much make it about this game because they need it to win in this game, because they all support our people from our country and our military men from our country, too.’

Kurtain, whose work has expanded to include soldiers since the start of the war, said about half of her country’s Olympic athletes trained in Kyiv or elsewhere in the country while others moved to foreign soil.

Rather than gather the entire delegation in the Ukraine before the games, Kurtain said they held sports camps elsewhere in Europe. Ukrainian press attaché Maksym Cheberiaka said one was funded by the French ministry of sports.

‘Every day we have bomb attack,’ Kurtain said. ‘Bomb attack every day and every day we have alarm and all the sportsmen need to train, continue training in a safe place, and all time we need to stop training and move to safe place, and it’s all time, all day. Some days we can do this three or four (times).’

Kryvytska, whose brother is on the front line fighting in the war, according to Reuters, said she regularly practiced in gyms with temperatures of 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) because of attacks on Ukraine’s electric grid.

‘Very hot,’ she said. ‘No (air) conditioners, no like working apparatus like with fencing we need to have. And when the massive attacks, the missiles attack, (it) alarms so we can’t.’

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Other competitors from around the globe said they can’t fathom having to train in the conditions Ukraine athletes have had to endure ahead of the Olympics.

The Canadian artistic swimming duet of Audrey Lamothe and Jacqueline Simoneau said they gave their Ukrainian counterparts – one of their top medal foes at the Olympics – hair pins at the last World Cup just so they could compete.

‘Definitely in our sport we really need to have 100% of our concentration and 100% of our awareness, and if I imagine me thinking of all of what’s going on outside, it will be another stress factor that it’s going on top of what our sport is demanding,’ Lamothe said.

Simoneau said her and Lamothe’s training venue at the Olympic Stadium in Montreal caught fire in April and forced a difficult and ‘huge shift’ in their Olympic preparation that is ‘so miniscule compared to what they’re facing.’

‘I mean, we have so much sympathy and compassion to what they’re facing right now, it’s really, it’s a crazy situation,’ she said. ‘(We were) bouncing between training venues. Outside, inside, not ideal training conditions, but at least there’s no bombs on us. At least there’s no war going on. We’re in a good country, there’s nothing really that’s inhibiting us from training.’

A Ukrainian coach who told USA Today Sports he did not speak fluent enough English to conduct an interview said, ‘I thank your country very much for support for my country,’ as he walked into Ukraine’s building Wednesday.

Kryvytska said she wanted people to know ‘that the war is still in Ukraine and it’s terrible and every day it takes a lot of lives.’

And at these Olympics, Ukrainian athletes are competing for more than themselves, with a chance to uplift their country, even if temporary.

‘It’s so hard, but it is our work now,’ Kurtain said. ‘It’s a hard time, but hard time it will build good people, strong people.’