United States domination continued in the women’s 4×100 medley on Sunday, taking another gold medal and setting a new world record of 3:49.63.
Breaking the previous world record, which also was owned by the Americans and set in 2019, Regan Smith, Lilly King, Gretchen Walsh, and Torri Huske beat second-place Australia by 3.48 seconds and gave Team USA the gold-medal swimming edge over their bitter rivals from down under.
The Americans picked up eight gold medals at the Summer Games in Paris while Australia picked up seven.
Holding a slim lead after Smith’s opening backstroke, King helped build a healthy two-plus-second advantage for the Americans with a 1:04.90 run in the breaststroke.
Walsh put up the best time in the butterfly before Huske was able to close things out for the world record and the gold.
This is the third time in the last four Olympics that the American women have taken gold in the 4×100 medley. Since the event’s introduction at the Summer Games in 1960, the women have never finished lower than second place.
Golds for each of the four American women also continue their impressive individual showings on the Olympic stage. Huske now has five medals in the 2024 Games with golds in the 100m butterfly and 4×100 mixed medley to go with silvers in the 100m freestyle and 4×100 freestyle.
Smith was also a part of the mixed medley team that won gold. She won silver medals in the 100m and 200m backstroke and the 200m butterfly, bringing her Paris total to five and her career total at the Olympics to eight.
Walsh now has four medals — two golds and two silvers — in Paris as she continues a brilliant career that made her one of the greatest collegiate swimmers of all time.
For King, this is her first gold medal at the Olympics since winning two at the 2016 Games in Rio. She won two silvers and a bronze at the Tokyo Games in 2021.
