Article by Jackson Barrett, courtesy of The Nightly.
Australia obliterated the field and smashed an Olympic record to win gold in a stunning 4x200m freestyle relay victory that etches Ariarne Titmus and Mollie O’Callaghan into swimming history.
The team of O’Callaghan, Lani Pallister, Brianna Throssell and swimming legend Titmus landed another blow on the United States in the pool and claimed Australia’s eighth gold medal of the Paris Olympics.
It puts the swim team on track to securing their most gold medals since the Melbourne 1956 Games as they lead arch rivals USA five golds to four in the pool.
The USA finished second and China, who gave Australia the stiffest competition in the early legs, claimed bronze.
Beating the Chinese was the cherry on top for the Australians after two members of the Chinese team that won in Tokyo were part of the 23 swimmers who tested positive to banned substance before being cleared of doping.
Australia’s bronze medal in Tokyo was one of the shocks of the meet. O’Callaghan, aged 17 at the time, did not race.
Throssell announced after the race it would be her last Olympics, while O’Callaghan is now a five-time gold medallist, drawing her level with pool champion Ian Thorpe at just 20 years old.
Titmus now has four gold medals and two at these Olympics.
“I was really disappointed with how I swum in Tokyo, I felt like I personally let the team down, so this was a bit of a personal vendetta for me to come back and really play my role for the team but also to do it for our country,” she said.
“This was a gold medal really we knew could be ours … (I was) really quite emotional out there.”
O’Callaghan now has three golds in Paris and her relay victory helped erase the blow of missing the medals in the 100m freestyle just 24 hours earlier.
“Coming off disappointment last night, it was amazing to be able to swim alongside these girls,” O’Callaghan said.
Throssell, who held off both American champion Katie Ledecky and Canadian teenage sensation Summer McIntosh in the third leg, said she was going out on top.
“That’s it, I’m 28, I’m not saying it is the end of my swimming career, but I won’t be going to LA,” she said.
“It was such an honour, but I know that I don’t want to be 32 and still swimming.
“I’m ready for the next chapter of my life.”
Shayna Jack won her second gold medal of the Games after being part of the victorious 4 x 100m freestyle relay team on the opening night, five years after a doping ban rubbed her out of the Tokyo Games. Jack and Jamie Perkins both swam in the heats. Australia’s newest golden girl O’Callaghan made a lightning start and led her entire leg, swimming a 1.53:52 that left her just above her own world record time.
Pallister, who pulled out of the 1500m freestyle as she battled COVID , held on to Australia’s lead, while Titmus steadied the cause and stretched away in the final leg for an easy win in 7:38.08.
The team was spotted celebrating with Tasmanian-born Queen Mary of Denmark and swimming royalty Dawn Fraser, who is Pallister’s godmother.
Ledecky’s silver medal means she is now the American with the most Olympic medals in history.
