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Silver medallists Australia's Jack Cartwright, Australia's Flynn Southam, Australia's Kai Taylor and Australia's Kyle Chalmers (L), gold medallists US' Jack Alexy, US' Chris Guiliano, US' Hunter Armstrong and US' Caeleb Dressel (C) and bronze medallists Italy's Alessandro Miressi, Italy's Thomas Ceccon, Italy's Paolo Conte Bonin and Italy's Manuel Frigo (R) pose with their medals on the podium of the men's 4x100m freestyle relay swimming event at the Paris La Defense Arena in Nanterre, west of Paris, on July 27, 2024. (Photo by Jonathan NACKSTRAND / AFP)
A United States team spearheaded by Caeleb Dressel stormed to the men’s 4x100m Olympic relay gold medal ahead of Australia on Saturday.
The quartet of Jack Alexy, Chris Guiliano, Hunter Armstrong and Dressel came home in 3min 09.28sec with Australia taking silver in 3:10.35 and Italy bronze in 3:10.70.
But they had their work cut after the opening leg with Chinese 100m world record holder Pan Zhanle putting in a scorching two laps.
The dominant Americans hauled themselves back into contention with Dressel powering them to the finish line.
Kyle Chalmers put in a cracking final leg to hand Australia silver, with his 46.59 the fastest split of any swimmer.
The United States have long dominated the event, winning 10 of the 14 times it has been on the Olympic programme before Paris.
They only missed top spot in 2000 (Australia), 2004 (South Africa) and 2012 (France), and as a result of the boycott in 1980.
Meanwhile, Australia swam the second fastest time in history Saturday to clinch the women’s 4x100m freestyle gold medal ahead of the United States at the Olympics.
Their team of Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Emma McKeon and Meg Harris proved too hot to handle, touching in 3min 28.92sec ahead of the Americans (3:30.20) and China (3:30.30).
Harris brought them home with a sizzling 51.94 after O’Callaghan led off to give them an immediate advantage.
It was the fourth successive Olympic gold Australia have won in the event, with the time second only to their own world record of 3:27.96 set last year.
They have held the world record since 2014, lowering it four times since then.
AFP
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