Australia has added two silver medals on the final day of competition In Paris with former Mackay product Meg Harris swimming faster than she’s ever swum in the 50 metres freestyle and an all-Queensland foursome finishing second in the women’s 4x100m medley relay.
Harris, who had been part of the back-to-back gold medal-winning 4x100m freestyle relay on night one clocked a time of 23.97 – her first time under 24 seconds – to snatch silver behind world record holder, Sweden’s Sarah Sjoestroem.
It was one of the most inspiring individual medal swims of a spectacular week’s swimming at the Paris La Defense Arena, when Harris, legally deaf after a childhood accident, produced the swim of her life.
Harris’s time making her history’s 11th fastest performer with Cate Campbell, Emma McKeon, and Libby Trickett the only Australians ever to swim faster, admitting because of her deafness, she’s had to improve her starts.
McKeon won gold in 2020 in Tokyo, Campbell the bronze in Beijing in 2008 and Trickett the bronze in 2004 in Athens.
“I’ve always had to work on my start -I have a stronger finish so I had to make sure I was actually focusing on my race – about a great break out, a great swim and it all came together in the moment and I felt pretty good in the water,” said Harris, who also told Eddie McGuire on Channel 9 how she manages her starts with her hearing impairment.
“I have learnt for a while now, swimming for so long, I’ve had to train myself and listen to ‘take your marks and the go’ and with an incredible crowd like that it’s always hard but they have ‘take your marks’ coming from the speaker in the blocks and I have trained myself to go and I have a pretty good reaction, when (the field goes).
“And I was very happy with the start and my time which was the first time under 24 seconds….”
The last night proved to be an emotionally charged finale, Australia’s women swimming their way into the Olympic record books, the 4x100m medley relay girls, celebrating with a collective “bomb” to finish off a spectacular week in the pool.
After collecting their silver medals the relay girls and with a typical show of Aussie larrikinism, the Aussie girls, Kaylee McKeown, Emma McKeon, Mollie O’Callaghan and Jenna Strauch launched themselves into the pool again– this time with a flying leap, tracksuits and all.
Urged on by McKeown the spur of the moment plunge, was not only to let off some steam after a pressure-cooker week that saw the Australian girls with a Midas touch, but also to celebrate the career of Australia’s greatest Olympic medal winner, McKeon.
The 30-year-old triple Olympian from Rio, Tokyo and Paris swam her final laps in the butterfly leg of the medley relay – the silver taking her overall medal tally to 14 (six gold, three silver and five bronze) – the most by any Australian athlete in the history of the Games – adding gold, silver and bronze from her Paris campaign.
And the smile said it all on McKeon’s face as she celebrated her stellar career alongside backstroking golden girl McKeown who finished the Games with five medals (two gold, one silver and two bronze) taking her overall Games tally to eight medals (five gold, one silver and two bronze).
McKeown sitting on top of the most individual gold medal list with four from her 100-200m backstroke double-double from Tokyo and Paris – ahead of fellow swimmers Ariarne Titmus, Ian Thorpe, Shane Gould, Dawn Fraser and Murray Rose, kayaker Jess Fox and track athlete Betty Cuthbert all with three each.
Titmus carving her own slice of history defending her 400m freestyle crown from Tokyo, winning her second gold with O’Callaghan, Lani Pallister and Bri Throssell (Shayna Jack and Jamie Perkins) in the women’s 4x200 and silvers in the 200 and 800m freestyles – taking her overall Olympic individual medal tally to six – three gold and three silver and her overall medal tally to eight.
O’Callaghan joined Titmus, Gould and Susie O’Neill when she won the 200m freestyle from world record holder Titmus – chiming in with golds in the 4x100m and 4x200m free relays;, silver in the 4x100m medley and bronze in the 4x100m mixed medley -a total of five medals in Paris from three gold, one silver and one bronze.
The 20-year-old has an overall Olympic medal total of eight adding in her three relay medals as a heat swimmer (two gold and one bronze) from Tokyo.
And it was O’Callaghan’s anchor leg with a sizzling split of 51.83, swimming the Australians past China and Canada, that took the girls from fourth into the silver medal position – maintaining Australia’s podium record in the relay for the last eight Games since Atlanta in 1996 with three gold and five silver v the USA five gold and three silvers.
The US taking Paris gold in a new world record with China the bronze –breaking the gold medal deadlock, taking the USA to eight gold after Bobby Finke’s amazing world record in the 1500m levelled the two teams on seven golds a piece.
The Americans saving their best till last after the Australians had given the world’s No 1 team something to chase - and the fright of their lives.
2024 Olympic Swimming FINAL MEDAL TALLY
GOLD (7)
Men’s 50m freestyle: Cam McEvoy (Somerville House; Coach Tim Lane)
Women’s 400m freestyle: Ariarne Titmus (St Peters Western; Coach Dean Boxall)
Women’s 200m freestyle: Mollie O’Callaghan (St Peters Western; Coach Dean Boxall)
Women’s 4x100m freestyle: Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack (St Peters Western; Coach Dean Boxall); Meg Harris (Rackley; Coach Damien Jones); Emma McKeon (Griffith University; Coach Michael Bohl);
Women’s 100m backstroke: Kaylee McKeown (Griffith University; Coach Michael Bohl)
Women’s 200m backstroke: Kaylee McKeown (Griffith University; Coach Michael Bohl)
Women’s 4x200m freestyle: Mollie O’Callaghan, Brianna Throssell, Ariarne Titmus, Jamie Perkins, Shayna Jack (St Peters Western; Coach Dean Boxall) Lani Pallister (Griffith University; Coach Michael Bohl);
SILVER (8)
Women’s 50m freestyle: Meg Harris
Women’s 200m freestyle: Ariarne Titmus
Women’s 800m, freestyle: Ariarne Titmus
Men’s 100m freestyle: Kyle Chalmers (St Andrews; Coach Ashley Delaney)
Men’s 400m freestyle: Elijah Winnington (St Peters Western; Coach Dean Boxall)
Men’s 200m breaststroke: Zac Stubblety Cook (Chandler; Coach Vince Raleigh)
Men’s 4x100m freestyle relay: Jack Cartwright, Kai Taylor (St Peters Western; Coach Dean Boxall), Flynn Southam (Bond; Coach Chris Mooney), Kyle Chalmers (St Andrews; Coach Ash Delaney)
Women’s 4x100m medley relay: Kaylee McKeown, Jenna Strauch (Miami, Richard Scarce), Emma McKeon, Mollie O’Callaghan; Heat Swimmers: Meg Harris, Alex Perkins (USC Spartans; Coach: Mick Palfrey) Iona Anderson (Breakers, WA; Coach Ben Higson), Ella Ramsay (Chandler, Coach Vince Raleigh)
BRONZE (3)
200m Individual Medley: Kaylee McKeown,
Men’s 4x200m freestyle relay: Max Giuliani (Miami; Coach Richard Scarce), Flynn Southam (Bond; Coach Chris Mooney), Elijah Winnington (St Peters Western; Coach Dean Boxall), Tommy Neill (Rackley; Coach Damien Jones)
Mixed 4x100m Mixed Medley Relay: Mollie O’Callaghan, Kaylee McKeown, Joshua Yong (WA), Matt Temple (SA), Heat swimmers: Kyle Chalmers, Iona Anderson (WA), Alexandria Perkins
Photos Delly Carr (Swimming Australia)
