Unchained medley: New madcap
THE mixed 4x100m medley relay was the funnest swimming event of the Tokyo Olympics. Blokes chasing down the girls, the girls chasing down the blokes, lead changes at every turn – the guy in charge of the PA system should have played some Benny Hill music.
It was a hoot from the moment the team sheets came out of the overheating printer on another baking day at the Tokyo Aquatics Centre, confirming Australia’s Emma McKeon would have to hold off American beast Caeleb Dressel like an eel trying to outpace the biggest and most dangerous crocodile in the swamp.
McKeon’s individual 100m freestyle-winning time had been 51.96sec. Dressel won the men’s in 47.02sec. The difference?
The proverbial mile. Selections are half the fun in the funnest swimming event at the Olympics, and when Australia chose its backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle line-up, it went female, male, male,
female: Kaylee McKeown, Zac Stubblety-Cook, Matthew Temple and McKeon.
The contentious decision was to omit men’s 100m freestyle silver medallist Kyle Chalmers from the anchor leg against Dressel.
His inclusion would have pushed McKeon into the butterfly and forced Temple out altogether, but Australia instead plotted for a commanding position through the men’s second and third legs before McKeon tried to hold off the fastest swimmer on Earth … and whoever else popped up.
It was the Poms who popped up, taking gold. Great Britain went down the same path as Australia, opting for female (Kathleen Dawson), male (Adam Peaty), male (James Guy) and female anchor (Anna Hopkin).
It worked a treat thanks to Olympic champion Peaty’s breaststroke dominance. Peaty’s split of 56.78sec swamped Stubblety-Cook’s 58.82sec, giving Hopkin enough of a lead to retain. China came second and Australia took the bronze after McKeon flashed home in a blistering 51.73sec.
Dressel clocked 46.99sec, but he started so far back the Americans had to settle for fifth.
The race was on Olympic debut and lived up to its madcap billing. A crowd would have lapped it up.
“It is pretty unreal, to be honest,” McKeon said.
“A mixed relay, you don’t know where you’re sitting. I knew the girl on the other side of me from The Netherlands, she was going last in freestyle so I knew I could kind of go off her rather than focusing on Dressel coming up behind me.”