The swimming session of the Olympics concluded today, finishing off our stint in the La Défense Arena with a bang. Two world records went down tonight, in the women’s 4×100 medley relay and the men’s 1500 freestyle, and the United States finished on top of the medal count with eight gold medals and 28 total medals. Veterans of the sport like Sarah Sjostrom and Lilly King continued their ultra-successful careers in the pool tonight, adding more gold medals to their total tallies. Here are some fun facts about the last night of swimming:
WOMEN’S 50 FREESTYLE
- In winning gold, Sarah Sjostrom completed the sprint double at this year’s Olympics, swimming a 23.71 to win the 50 freestyle tonight. Winning her second Olympic medal in the event, Sjostrom joins a crowd of five other swimmers (Inge de Bruijn, Yang Wenyi, Pernille Blume, Dara Torres, Aliaksandra Herasimenia) who have won two medals in the Olympic 50 freestyle.
- Zhang Yufei won her fourth and fifth bronze medals of the meet, in this event and the women’s medley relay later on in the program. Zhang, with one silver and five bronze medals, will take home the most medals of the meet at six.
- Meg Harris cracked the 24.00 mark for the first time in her career to finish second, swimming a 23.97 to become the 12th fastest performer of all time, tying Libby Trickett, Simone Manuel, and Liu Xiang.
MEN’S 1500 FREESTYLE
- Bobby Finke goes back-to-back in the men’s 1500 freestyle, repeating his gold medal performance from Tokyo and breaking Sun Yang’s world record from the London Olympics in 2012. Finke is the most recent gold medalist in this event since Mike O’Brien in 1984.
- Kuzey Tuncelli rebroke his own world junior record in the 1500 freestyle, swimming a 14:41.22 to finish fifth and shave 0.67 seconds off of his old best time.
- Gregorio Paltrinieri won a silver medal for Italy, allowing them to complete their set. The nation now has one of each color medal.
- Finke’s gold medal places the United States over Australia in the overall rankings for the men’s 1500 freestyle, winning America’s ninth gold in the event. Australia has eight.
- Daniel Wiffen wins another medal for the Irish, closing out a historic meet. He is the first and only man competing for Ireland to ever win a medal, and he adds another to his personal collection.
MEN’S 4×100 MEDLEY RELAY
- China’s Pan Zhanle became the first swimmer to break Jason Lezak’s 46.06 freestyle relay split, swimming a mind-boggling 45.92. The newly-minted world record holder in the 100 freestyle is now the only swimmer in history to go below a 46.00.
- Caeleb Dressel and Maxime Grousset both dipped under the 50.00 second mark, with Dressel swimming a 49.41 and Grousset swimming a 49.57. Dressel and Grousset, along with Michael Phelps, are the only swimmers to ever break the threshold in the history of the sport in a relay, but Milorad Cavic, Josh Liendo, and Kristof Milak have all broken it using a flat start.
- China also broke the United States’ 11-Olympic long streak of winning in this event, supplemented heavily by Zhanle’s freestyle leg and Qin Haiyang’s 57.98 breaststroke split.
- The fastest splits of the night came from Xu Jiayu with a 52.37, Qin, Dressel, and Pan. China’s butterfly leg was the seventh fastest in the field, only ahead of Great Britain’s Duncan Scott.
WOMEN’S 4×100 MEDLEY RELAY
- The United States broke the previous world record of 3:50.40 set in 2019 at the World Championships in Gwangju, South Korea. The quartet of Regan Smith, Lilly King, Gretchen Walsh, and Torri Huske swam a 3:49.63, bettering the previous record by nearly a second. Both Smith and King were on the 2019 relay, swimming with Kelsi Dahlia and Simone Manuel.
- The American relay won this event for the 11th time in its history, reclaiming the gold and contributing to the United States’ 16th overall medal in the women’s medley relay. Australia’s silver medal sent their women’s medley relay medal count into the double digits, and China won their third bronze medal.
- Gretchen Walsh’s butterfly split of 55.03 ties Sarah Sjostrom’s 55.03 from 2017, giving her one of the two fastest splits of all time. Lilly King had the 13th fastest breaststroke split of all time with her 1:04.90, a major comeback for her after missing the podium individually. Regan Smith’s time of 57.28 is a new Olympic record, and is only 0.15 seconds off of her own world record of 57.13. Torri Huske capped off her meet with an excellent 52.42, ushering the relay in for her second world record of the meet.
- Mollie O’Callaghan had the fastest freestyle split of the field with a 51.83 to bring Australia from fourth to second in the midnight hour, passing China and Canada.
