Olympians who disparage their opponents better be able to put their medals where their mouth is.
The French 4x100 freestyle relay team found that out Sunday night.
Before the Beijing games began, French swimmer Alain Bernard was asked what he thought of Michael Phelps and his American teammates who would challenge them for the gold.
"The Americans? We're going to smash them. That's what we came here for," Bernard said before the games.
I guess maybe the word "smash" doesn't mean the same thing in French as it does English.
As Bernard sailed down the final stretch, American Jason Lezak matched him all the way until overtaking him on the last stroke.
"I've been on the last two relays where we come up short," Lezak said after the race. "To be honest with you I got really tired of losing."
Phelps doesn't know much about losing. He has now won two gold medals this week and could win as many as eight, overtaking American swimming legend Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals in one Olympiad.
"I was going nuts," Phelps said. "As soon as [Lezak] came off that last wall, I started going crazy. We're a team. We went in as a team and now we're exiting as a team -- and we're going out with that gold that we needed to get back."
Not only was the underdog's victory exciting Sunday night, the race itself showed swimming is in a new era.
The fifth place team from Sweden broke the old world record. The "old" world record had been set in qualifying heats for this event earlier in the day - by the American's B team.
Of course, athletes are training at a much higher level. Science is advancing all athletic achievement.
But the biggest recent change involves the new suits the competitors wear. Gone are the days when swimmers took to the pool in a tiny Speedo. Current suits are streamlined body suits that improve buoyancy while lowering drag in the water.
It obviously works.
Two teams broke a world record and didn't even get a place on the medal stand.
No one is applying asterisks to records or creating a new book of records for the body suit era.
Maybe they should.
But, Sunday night, the swimmers could have been wearing three-piece suits and it wouldn't have lessened the thrill of victory for the Americans over the talkative Frenchmen.
But in defense of the French team, it would be hard to swim with your foot in your mouth.