World records tumble as US rule the Paris pool

Iron-man Bobby Finke and the US women’s medley relay team shattered world records in golden performances as the Olympic swim meet ended in exhilarating fashion yesterday with the Americans on top again.
Floridian Finke took down Sun Yang’s 12-year 1,500m world record as he retained the gold medal in the lung-busting event before the American women smashed their previous world mark for gold in the medley relay.
The golds saw the Americans finish with eight at the top of the swimming medal table, one more than second-placed Australia whose ambitions of ruling the Olympic pool for the first time since Melbourne 1956 were quashed. It was by no means an American shut-out, though, with the US men’s medley relay team suffering their first defeat ever at Olympics meets dating back to the 1960 Rome Games in a febrile atmosphere at La Defense Arena.
China, anchored by the human missile Pan Zhanle, took the gold ahead of the US team, whose talisman Caeleb Dressel took his first minor medal from a previously uniform set of nine golds.
“I feel like for a team USA, the expectation is gold,” said Dressel who swam the third butterfly leg of the relay. “That’s traditionally what we strive for and I don’t think that changes any Olympic cycle.
“That was a close race, came down to the wire, and they had four great splits, we had four great splits, and they were faster, simple as that.”
Sarah Sjostrom finished the Games on a huge high after claiming the women’s 50m freestyle in 23.71 seconds, the evergreen Swede’s two-gold haul surpassing all returns at her previous four Games.
“This was definitely my best (Olympics),” said the 30-year-old, who took the first of her three golds at Rio 2016. I’m definitely going to continue swimming for many years, but I mean, how can I top this ever?”
China, who finished fifth on the swimming medal table with two golds among their 12 medals, came to the Games under a cloud of suspicion after revelations in April that 23 of their swimmers tested positive for a banned heart medication but were allowed to compete at the Tokyo Games.
Britain missed out on a podium place in the men’s medley won by China, and triple Olympic champion Adam Peaty was pointed in his comments afterwards.
“One of my favourite quotes I’ve seen lately is ‘There’s no point in winning if you don’t win it fair’,” the breaststroker told reporters. “I don’t want to paint a whole nation or a whole group of people with one brush. I think it’s very unfair.
“But there has been two cases and I think it’s very disappointing.”
The prevailing mood at the pool was joy, though, as another huge crowd roared their appreciation of the sport from start to finish. Following Sjostrom’s gold, Finke won the 1,500m in 14:30.67, shaving 0.35 seconds off Chinese swimmer Sun’s previous mark.
He finished four seconds clear of Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri, who took silver eight years on from his 2016 gold at Rio. Wiffen took bronze days after stripping Finke of his 800m crown to become Ireland’s first male Olympic swimming champion.
France celebrated another medal with bronze in the men’s relay medley, finishing third on the table thanks to Leon Marchand’s four individual golds.
“This medal has the same flavour as the others. Except that it’s shared,” said Marchand.
“It’s the cherry on the cake and I will remember it because we had a super team.”
In the end it was the Americans on top again, though, as they have been at every Olympic swimming meet since the 1992 Barcelona Games.
Regan Smith, Lilly King, Gretchen Walsh and Torri Huske made sure of it with a world record swim of 3:49.63 in the women’s medley relay, with Australia taking silver and China bronze. “It’s awesome to see everybody improving and just an awesome way to cap off the meet,” said King.