Australia’s women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team has won Australia’s second gold medal in the pool on Day 1 of the Rio Olympics, setting a new world record of 3:30.65 in the process.
Emma McKeon, Brittany Elmslie and sisters Bronte and Cate Campbell set the world’s fastest time and blitzed the competition to take first place in the event they were fancied to win.
Cate Campbell is the current 100m freestyle world record holder. Bronte Campbell is the current 100m freestyle world champion. They were always going to be hard to beat for any team. It certainly proved that way, as Australia went on to break their own world record and give Australia a lead at the top of the medal tally for Day 1 of the Olympic Games.
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It’s Cate and Bronte Campbell’s second gold medal, with this race meaning they defended their gold medal in the 4x100m freestyle relay from 2012. Cate also won two bronze medals in Beijing in 2008.
The medal is Elmslie and McKeon’s first one in an Olympics, with Rio being McKeon’s first appearance, while Elmslie won a gold and two silvers as a heat swimmer in London (thanks!).
Australia now hold the world record, the Olympic record, the Olympic gold medal and the world championships gold, which they won in 2015.
At the halfway point of the race it looked like Australia had work to do, with Bronte going into her leg a couple of hundredths of a second behind the Americans.
Emma McKeon had a cracking first leg and Brittany Elmslie had a great second 50 metres, and the Campbell sisters did the rest.
Bronte gave Cate a 0.4-second advantage coming into the final leg, with the Americans the only team within touching distance.
But with Cate coming up against American Katie Ledecky in her non-preferred distance over 100m. It wasn’t close in the end, with Australia doing a number on the world record as well.
USA took home the silver, with Canada winning bronze.
After the race, when asked about whether she was nervous before diving in, Cate Campbell was brutally honest about Ledecky and the USA’s chances in the race.
“I saw Katie Ledecky dive in beside me. Honestly, she had no chance.”
Campbell might have laughed that off afterwards, but you couldn’t help but think she was only telling the truth, not being arrogant.
The gold puts Australia on top of the Olympic Medal Tally, albeit temporarily, and already eclipses Australia’s haul of gold medals from the 2012 London Olympics, where the only successful team was the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay.
Mack Horton won the other gold medal for Australia in the pool today, while it was Australia’s archers who won the first medal for Australia, taking the bronze earlier in the day.
What a day for Australia!
Galatzo
Guest
The strategy was easy to see - Emma and Brittany had to hold off any big advance from Simone Manuel, who swam a 53.36, and Abbey Weitzeil, who was faster than her team mate in 52.56, and the Aussie starters did a great job. It was all over when Bronte swam a 52.15 and gave Cate a small lead. Cate flew home in 51.97. Well done, ladies. But it's Ledecky who'll be the star of the show. She'll take the 200, the 400 and the 800. Probably get gold in the 4 X 200 as well.
Maggie
Guest
Fantastic performance by all four young women but particularly by Cate Campbelll bringing it home. She is a beautiful swimmer to watch, seems to skim across the top of the water.
Carl
Guest
Congratulations ladies.