Article by Julian Linden, courtesy of The Australian.
USA Swimming was so determined not to be beaten by Australia on the Olympic medals table in Paris, that they did something they’ve never done before.
They played favourites — secretly removing some of their best swimmers from the Paris Olympic village and moving them to a private hotel so close to the La Defense Arena pool they could see it from their windows and walk there in a matter of minutes.
In a sport where gold medals are decided by fractions of seconds, it was a decisive and winning move.
Trailing the Aussies by three gold medals with just six races left in the nine-day Olympic swimming competition, the Americans clawed their way back from the brink of defeat to win four late golds, including the final event — the women’s 4x100m medley relay — to slip past the Dolphins and finish on top of the table with eight gold medals to Australia’s seven.
It was a remarkable turnaround but one that had them changing USA and ringing their cowbells.
The move has, however, raised questions about whether it gave them an advantage because Australia’s swimmers were still having to stay and travel from the village, where the transport system was chaotic, with elite swimmers, sometimes left sitting on the floor for up to an hour in buses without adequate air conditioning.
According to sources who spoke only on condition of anonymity, the breaking point for the US swim team came after the first night of finals when Katie Ledecky won a bronze medal in the women’s 400m freestyle, behind Australia’s Ariarne Titmus and Canadian teenage sensation Summer McIntosh.
Expecting all three medallists to be there, Ledecky turned up to the post-race conference to find she was alone.
She still fielded all the questions she was asked, then waited patiently for the athlete bus back to the village.
It finally arrived but then broke down, so she didn’t get back to bed until nearly 2am.
That’s when USA Swimming decided to take matters into their own hands, so they started making discreet enquiries about relocating some of their best medal hopes to a hotel right next to the pool.
There’s no rules against that and it turned out to be a smart play but they went to extreme lengths not to publicise it because not all of their swimmers got moved and they didn’t want the Dolphins to find out.
USA Swimming, which is normally quick to respond to the media, did not reply to multiple emails from this masthead about the hotel switch.
But they couldn’t keep it a complete secret because international officials told this masthead they spotted swimmers, including Regan Smith and Ledecky, being escorted to and from the hotel, even though they had their faces covered up.
Rival swimmers found out, including some Aussies.
“Unfortunately, the US and some of the other higher sports people in swimming got to stay very close to the pool which I thought was a bit, you know,” Kaylee McKeown said. “Olympics, you go in and you expect everything to be a fair playing field. So I was like, ‘well, that’s a bit of a blow to us’. We’re travelling an hour to and from the village. They were staying just outside the village, walking to and from the pool.”
Did it make any difference? No-one knows for sure.
But McKeown comfortably beat Smith in both the individual 100m and 200m backstroke finals. But Smith got the last laugh when the US medley realy won the final race.
