The United States smashed their own world record in the women’s 4x100m medley relay to close the swimming meet at the Paris Olympics with the gold medal on Sunday. Australia took the silver and China the bronze.
The quartet of Regan Smith, Lilly King, Gretchen Walsh and Torri Huske touched out with a final time of three minutes 49.63 seconds at the La Defense Arena. The previous record of 3:50.40 was set by the US at the world championships in Gwangju, South Korea, in July 2019.
However, China ended the US’ 64-year unbeaten run in the men’s 4x100m medley.
Amid deafening cheers at the converted rugby stadium, the 100m freestyle world record holder Pan Zhanle brought China home with an outrageous swim as he, Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang and Sun Jiajun won in a time of three minutes, 27.46 seconds.
Earlier, American iron-man Bobby Finke smashed the men’s 1,500 metres freestyle world record as he retained the Olympic gold medal in a time of 14 minutes, 30.67 seconds.
On Saturday, the US romped to victory in the mixed 4x100m medley relay in world record time of three minutes 37.43 seconds.
Ryan Murphy swam the opening leg with Nic Fink and Walsh following before Torri Huske made sure of the gold.
Regan Smith, Charlie Swanson, Caeleb Dressel and Abbey Weitzeil had all swum in the preliminary round on Friday to secure a place in the final and were also rewarded for their efforts.
