PARIS — Iron-man Bobby Finke and the U.S. women’s medley relay team shattered world records in golden performances as the Olympic swim meet ended in exhilarating fashion on Sunday 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 U.S. 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 U.S. 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?”
Doping storm stirs again
Though the sport shone on the closing night, there was also a clear note of dissent over China’s success amid a doping storm that engulfed the team in the leadup to Paris.
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.
The World Anti-Doping Agency accepted a Chinese investigation’s findings that the test results were due to contamination from a hotel kitchen the team were staying at.
The team China brought to Paris included a number of swimmers named among the 23 in media reports.
China was then thrust back into the doping spotlight last week when the New York Times reported that two of its swimmers in 2022 had tested positive for a banned steroid but had their provisional bans lifted when the results were blamed on contaminated food.
One of those two swimmers according to the Times report was competing at Paris.
WADA concluded there was no evidence to challenge the contaminated meat scenario.
China’s anti-doping agency (CHINADA) accused the U.S. newspaper of politicizing doping issues and said the publication was trying to “affect the psychology” of China’s athletes in Paris.
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 favorite 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 flavor 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.