Article by Jacquelin Magnay, courtesy of Herald Sun.
Australia has won its first bronze medal of the Paris Olympics, finishing behind the hot British and American teams in the men’s 4x200m relay.
The final event of day four at the La Defense Arena had Australia’s Elijah Winnington clock the fastest split of the Australians, 1min45.19sec, in the third leg to reign in the gap to Team GB and the United States. Earlier the 24 year old Queenslander had used the 800m freestyle final as a warmup for the relay, whipping out a sub-world record pace for half of the highly credentialled race before easing off and conserving his energy for the team event.
Tasmania’s 21 year old Max Giuliani had started the relay for Australia, keeping the team in touch with Germany’s lead off swimmer and Olympic champion Luka Martens.
He passed to the Gold Coast flyer Flynn Southam who set off quickly gathering in the rest of the field so that Winnington was in third place when he dived in.
Winnington posted his trademark fast finish and while Tommy Neill closed the gap to Team GB and the United States. it wasn’t quite enough to beat their ace swimmers, Duncan Scott and Kieran Smith.
Australia’s time was 7min 05.63s, half a second behind winners Team GB in 7mins.05.11sec and the United States silver medal winning time of 7mins05.57s.
Australian selectors had rested Kai Taylor, Hayley Lewis’s son, who had swum the heats, as well as Kyle Chalmers, who has the 100m freestyle final on Wednesday morning.
Chalmers had apologised to his teammates after the trials, saying he wished he could swim the 4x200m relay but he didn’t want to be cooked for the 100m final, for which he has qualified second fastest. He is looking to add to his gold and silver 100m Olympic medals.
