Jason Edward Lezak (born on November 12, 1975 in Irvine, California) is an American swimmer.
He is a member of the Rose Bowl Aquatics swim club. The head coach, Jeff Julian, is a long-time childhood friend. He formerly swam for Irvine Novaquatics. He graduated from Irvine High School in 1994, and then from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1999. He is 193 cm (6 ft 4 in) and weighs 93 kg (205 pounds). Lezak is a specialist in the 50 and 100 m freestyle races. He also is a very good relay swimmer, owning long-course world records in the 400m freestyle and medley relays, as well as American records in the 100m free and and the 400m short-course medley relay.
Lezak's first long-course international swimming gold medal was in 2003, when he was part of the 4x100 m medley relay that set a new world record. He also won a silver medal in the 4×100 m freestyle relay. In short-course competitions he won five world championships, four relays plus a gold in the 100 m freestyle in 2004. Lezak has also won 7 US Championships, 3 times in the 50 m freestyle and 4 in the 100 m freestyle.
He competed in several events at the 2004 Olympic Games, and was a member of the 4x100 metre medley relay team that set a new world record at the games. He also won a bronze medal in the 4×100 m freestyle relay and finished eighth in the 50 m freestyle single race.
In 2005 he was World Champion in the 4x100 m medley and freestyle relays with US national team.
At the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, Lezak anchored the U.S. 4x100 meter freestyle relay team, powering them to a gold medal and smashing the world record. In the final 25 meters, he ran down French anchor-swimmer Alain Bernard, former world record holder in the 100 freestyle, to win gold. Lezak split a 46.06, the fastest 100 meter freestyle split in history, by nearly six tenths of a second. The final time of the American team was 3:08:24, four seconds faster than the previous world record. France finished second at 3:08.32, only eight hundredths of a second behind. The victory came only days after Bernard had issued inflammatory statements, stating that the French team would "smash them (the Americans)" in the race.
