Three Finals And Three Silver Medals For Crew USA

2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

Two days into the 2023 World Championships, we revealed a YouTube video titled “what’s happening with Crew USA?” after the People completed day one of many meet with no gold medal for the primary time since 1994. The widespread consensus then was that we had been simply overreacting. Even when Crew USA had its worst gold medal depend at an Olympics/World Championships since 1994, there have been loads of explanations behind their underperformance: the staff went on a red-eye flight from Singapore to Fukuoka, there was solely a three-week turnaround from trials to Worlds, and this meet might have simply been one other repeat of the notoriously 2015 World Championships. The expectation was that the People would rise to the event through the Olympic yr.

However 4 days into the Paris Olympics, an analogous sample appears to be occurring. Whereas the People did see the highest of the rostrum already by advantage of Torri Huske‘s 100 fly gold and that of the lads’s 4×100 free relay earlier within the meet, they’re at the moment falling behind Australia on the medal desk and are on monitor to not win it for the primary time since 1988. However what exasperated the priority at the moment was that the People had three winnable occasions at the moment, however took silver in each single one in every of them.

Regan Smith and Australia’s Kaylee McKeown have at all times been neck-and-beck when it comes to backstroke instances, and Smith even broke McKeown’s world report within the 100 again this June. However on Tuesday, the identical consequence because the 2021 Olympics and 2023 Worlds performed out, with McKeown out-touching Smith for gold as soon as extra. That occasion, thought of some of the essential ones for the medal desk battle, put the Aussies on the benefit.

Then got here the 800 free, the place Bobby Finke was one other potential gold medal contender because the reigning Olympic champion. He placed on the afterburners on his remaining 50 like he at all times did however couldn’t catch up, falling behind Eire’s Daniel Wiffen. Crew USA additionally had a shot at gold within the males’s 4×200 free relay, however a 1:43.95 break up from Nice Britain’s Duncan Scott ensured that no person could be catching them for a repeat Olympic title. The People ended up with silver.

However maybe the precise lowlights of the session had been the semifinals. Matt Fallon, who had damaged the American report at Olympic trials and was a respectable risk for gold, missed the 200 breast remaining. Within the males’s 200 fly, Luca Urlando and Thomas Heilman each missed, marking it the primary time since 1980 (when there have been no People on the Olympics) that this occurred. There was actually solely success within the ladies’s 100 free, the place Gretchen Walsh and Huske each made it again.

The theme of 2023 has emerged as soon as extra: the People are choosing up the minor medals, however nobody is main the cost on something. This raises loads of questions for USA Swimming: is that this an remoted incident as soon as once more, brought on by the unfold of COVID-19 all through the Olympic village affecting athletes like Luke Whitlock and David Johnston? Is the remainder of the world catching as much as the People, or had been they only spoiled by the successes of generational abilities like Michael Phelps, Caeleb Dressel, and Katie Ledecky? Do adjustments must be made earlier than the 2028 Olympics on dwelling soil?

Crew USA may have loads extra probabilities to win gold — notably with Ledecky within the 800 and 1500 free, Kate Douglass within the 200 breast and 200 IM, Dressel within the 100 fly, Bobby Finke within the 1500 free, Ryan Murphy and each the lads’s and girls’s medley relays. But when these alternatives don’t come to fruition, conversations must be had concerning the state of worldwide swimming, in addition to America’s place in all of that.

Different Highlights:

• Sadly, Canada’s Josh Liendo was additionally a notable miss, as he positioned eleventh within the males’s 100 free and shall be lacking the ultimate. So will the Cayman Islands’ Jordan Crooks, who was thirteenth.
• The US’ Katharine Berkoff clinched Crew USA’s 3000th Olympic medal and 600th medal in swimming with a 100 again bronze (57.98). She pulled this feat precisely 32 years after her father David had the identical consequence on the 1992 Olympic Video games. Canada’s Kylie Masse completed fourth, simply lacking a 3rd consecutive Olympic podium end within the occasion.

North American Medal Desk: