By Ian Ransom
PARIS (Reuters) – Australia’s ambitions of dethroning the United States as the greatest swimming team were quashed on the final day of the Paris Olympic meet on Sunday, but their top women swimmers celebrated anyway by leaping into the pool in their tracksuits.
Gold medals and world records by Bobby Finke and the U.S. women’s medley relay team on the final day condemned Australia to finishing second on the medal table again behind the Americans, who continued their streak of finishing on top at every Games since 1992 in Barcelona.
Australia led the medal count with seven golds going into the final day and had hoped to stay there for the first time since Melbourne 1956.
But a silver medal for Meg Harris in the 50m freestyle and another in the women’s medley relay saw them fall just short, three years after doing the same at Tokyo.
That mattered little to the team, though, who had plenty to be proud of, including a three-medal haul for Kaylee McKeown who defended both her backstroke titles.
“There’s nothing else that I would have done different,” said McKeown.
“I haven’t had time to reflect and I’m sure if I do reflect, I’ll, you know, nitpick everything as athletes do.
“But yeah, I’m just so proud of myself, my team, my coach, just all of Australia really.
“We’ve come together. We’ve done the best that we could.”
Once again it was Australia’s women doing all the heavy lifting, capturing six of their tally of seven golds.
Ariarne Titmus defended her 400m gold in style, fending off Summer McIntosh and American great Katie Ledecky.
Cameron McEvoy was the sole Australian man to win gold in Paris when he won the 50m freestyle title after thinking his Olympic chance was gone.
The future is nonetheless bright, said Mollie O’Callaghan, who beat Titmus for the 200m freestyle gold and won two relay golds to boot.
“There’s been a lot of happiness, a lot of sadness,” said O’Callaghan.
“This is the beginning of my career and I have so much more to go and I really hope I get to stand alongside Kaylee again in these relays and the other girls.”
(Reporting by Ian Ransom; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
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