Australia won gold and set an Olympic record in the women's 4x100m medley relay final on Sunday at the Tokyo Olympics, capping a record-breaking, legend-making Games for Emma McKeon and the Aussie team.
Australia – Kaylee McKeown, Chelsea Hodges, McKeon and Cate Campbell – clocked 3:51.60 to beat the USA (3:51.73) in heart-stopping fashion. Canada was third (3:52.60). Campbell swam an epic final freestyle leg and it capped another stunning day for McKeon, who had already won the 50m freestyle in an Olympic record time before swimming the butterfly leg.
It was McKeon's fourth gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics, a feat that has never before been achieved by an Australian at a single Games. She surpassed greats like Murray Rose, Ian Thorpe, Shane Gould, Petria Thomas, Stephanie Rice and Betty Cuthbert (all three).
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McKeon has 11 Olympic medals in total, an Australian record. She matched Thorpe's Australian record of five Olympic swimming gold medals, the most by an Aussie in any sport, and surpassed the four won by Dawn Fraser. It was a third gold of the Games for backstroke star McKeown and a second for veteran Campbell.
Australia has now won nine gold medals in the pool at Tokyo. That makes it our greatest Olympic swimming haul, home or away, outdoing Melbourne 1956.
McKeon, 27 became the first female swimmer to win seven medals at a single Olympics, breaking a tie with Germany's Kristin Otto and American Natalie Coughlin. With No.7, she also tied Soviet gymnast Maria Gorokhovskaya (Helsinki 1952) for the most medals at a single Games by any female athlete.
It shapes as a wonderful career swansong for Campbell.
"I still just can't believe that we just did that, that is an incredible effort by everyone," she said.
Hodges swam a superb leg in the breaststroke; the team's weakest link who utterly refused to break.
"These girls are amazing. I just knew I needed to pick it up and I think I did that today," she said on pool deck afterwards.
The women's 4x100m medley relay won Australia's 12th gold medal of the Tokyo Olympics. Australia's women have been incredible in the pool.
Ariarne Titmus (200m, 400m freestyle) McKeon (50m, 100m freestyle), McKeown (100m, 200 backstroke), the women's 4x100m and 4x100m medley relays, plus Zac Stubblety-Cook in the men's 200m breaststroke, are our champions.
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