FLASH! American Women Break World Record in Women’s Medley Relay in Dominant Closing Statement
The four American women walked down the pool deck wrapped in an embrace with the Stars and Stripes flag draped over their shoulders, an imperfect meet at the Singapore World Championships capped off with a show of force in the 400 medley relay.
The group of Regan Smith, Kate Douglass, Gretchen Walsh and Torri Huske represents the core of the American women’s team that won a medal in every event prior to the last day of competition of Singapore. All four are experienced veterans of at least one Olympics, with all except Walsh having competed in both Tokyo and Paris. All have captured individual world titles. And this medley relay almost always brings out the best of what the American women are capable of.
Even with the team having battled stomach illness throughout the World Championships, the Americans remained heavily favored entering this medley relay. All four women won medals in their respective 100-meter events, with Walsh scoring gold in dominant fashion. Even Australia, with two world champions and one bronze medalist competing, had a major weakness to overcome.
And the race was effectively over when Smith beat Kaylee McKeown, her longtime rival in the backstroke events, on the leadup leg. Just like at last year’s Olympics, Smith turned the tables from the individual 100 back when the relay came around. She touched in 57.57, 0.12 ahead, and that set Douglass up for blast through the breaststroke leg. One length in, and the lead was over a second.
Douglass ended up splitting 1:04.27, more than a second ahead of anyone else in the field. Next up was Walsh, whose split of 54.98 was quicker than any other swimmer has ever gone and almost a second quicker than anyone else in the heat. On the end, Australia’s Mollie O’Callaghan out-split Huske, but she made almost no inroads in Huske’s enormous margin. Barring a disqualification, nothing could have stopped the Americans here.
“It feels really good, ending the season this way with Team USA. We have so much faith and we’re so proud of this medley relay. We always like ending with a bang. And so we love that and we bring our all every single time, and we wanted to deliver tonight, and that’s what we did,” Smith said.
The team finished in 3:49.34 to win gold by 3.33 seconds over Australia. In last year’s Olympic final, the group swam the first sub-3:50 performance in history, and they took down their own world record here by three tenths. Three of the same four swimmers returned from that Paris squad, with Douglass taking over for Lilly King. Notably, the retiring King earns one final gold medal after handling breaststroke duties in prelims.
“I remember last year I watched these girls kill it for real in Paris and break this world record,” Douglass said. “And I’m so happy to have the chance this year and try to break that world record again. I’m really proud of this.”
The American women celebrate their world-record-breaking performance — Photo Courtesy: Emily Cameron
The four Americans on this finals squad concluded their runs in Singapore with huge medal tallies. Smith won more individual medals than any American at the meet, claiming silver medals in all three backstroke events plus the 200 butterfly, and she and Douglass each finished with five medals total.
Walsh and Huske were among the swimmers most affected by illness, with both dropping an individual event from their schedules to conserve energy, but both bounced back enough to produce strong splits for this relay and finish the meet with four medals apiece.
“This is my favorite relay, and I was just so blessed to be put on another relay after the front half of the meet,” Huske said. “I also think that this not only sends a message to the rest of the world, but also a message within our team. We’re the only ones who really know what we went through and how awful it was to be. The fact that we were able to overcome as much as we did, is, I think, inspiring.”
Smith added, “It’s not over till it’s over. I’d say Team USA always knows how to finish with a bang. And I think it just sends a really positive message out to the viewers at home who didn’t really believe in us. This is the beginning of a very long quad, and it’s going to be a very successful quad, and we proved that we had a higher gold medal tally than we had in Fukuoka under insanely terrible circumstances, to put it bluntly. So I’m so excited for our future.”
Australia claimed silver here in 3:52.67, two seconds clear of the third-best team in the pool. McKeown, Ella Ramsey, Alex Perkins and O’Callaghan competed for the Dolphins, with O’Callaghan coming home in 52.23 to secure her fifth medal of the competition, three gold and two silver. Australia largely overperformed in Singapore while swimming without several established stars, including freestyler Ariarne Titmus and retired sprinter Emma McKeon.
“Everyone thinks it’s a rebuilding year, and these girls and men and women all stepped up to perform this meet. It’s just been a privilege to watch them and grow as athletes and individuals. I’m really inspired by them,” O’Callaghan said. “It’s very special to be a part of this team, and it’s very rare to swim alongside the medley relay girls, so I’m pretty stoked.”
China grabbed bronze in 3:54.77 with the team of Peng Xuwei, Tang Qianting, Zhang Yufei and Cheng Yujie. Tang went 1:05.48 on breaststroke, second-best in the field, while Zhang rebounded from mixed results this meet to go 56.32 on butterfly.
Just missing the podium was the team of Neutral Athletes, despite Daria Klepikova providing the only sub-56 butterfly split aside from Walsh. Canada was fifth in 3:55.63, with Summer McIntosh following up her busy schedule with a 57.35 butterfly leg. Sixth-place Germany got a 1:04.90 split from Anna Elendt, the 100-meter world champion, on the breaststroke leg.
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An expected US Gold to just manage to eke out 1 more Gold than minnow Australia (13 times smaller population).
But a tremendous result for OZ!