Australia claim world championship gold after dramatic open water swimming finish
Australia have claimed their first swimming gold medal at the aquatic world championships in Doha, clinching a nail-biting win in the 4x1500m mixed open-water event.
The team of Moesha Johnson, Chelsea Gubecka, Nicholas Sloman and Kyle Lee held off a fast-finishing Italy to win by two-tenths of a second in the Qatari capital.
West Australian Lee, 21, touched in a time of one hour three minutes 28 seconds to just pip the defendingchampion Italians (1.03:28:20), with fellow Europeans Hungary (1.04:06:80) claiming bronze more than 28 seconds behind.
Lee has a head for numbers as well as high drama.
A day after taking an accountancy examination in his Doha hotel, the brilliant open water swimmer had some more tough calculations as he battled to earn Australia a win by the merest fraction in the world championship relay.
The 21-year-old Lee will know better than anyone just how unlikely it was to win the 4 x 1500m event around old
Doha port by a mere 0.2 seconds after nearly an hour-and-a-quarter’s ferocious racing on Thursday.
Less than 24 hours earlier, the Zimbabwe-born swimmer’s preparation for the last open water race of the programme had entailed him sitting a twohour auditing examination, as part of his accountancy degree course, in the Australian team hotel, supervised by the team management.
But on Friday morning, after his cerebral test came a brutally physical one as the Western Australian produced one of his now trademark storming anchor legs to touch the boards just two-tenths of a second ahead of Italian Domenico Acerenza after the pair had battled side-by-side in a remarkable duel.
His teammates, who had set up the last-leg thriller, were left celebrating their triumph, only after a nervous wait on the pontoon to check who had actually prevailed.
“I just tried to stay calm and it is so hectic in that finishing shoot … I guess I got lucky on the touch,” said Lee, who’s proved himself a considerable “finisher” for the Dolphins with memorable anchor legs at the 2023 world championships in Fukuoka and the 2023 World Cup in Funchal.
“It was so exciting to race today and to know you’re not swimming for yourself, you’re swimming for your country. Everyone swam so well so going into the water, they were wishing me the best of luck – and I tried to do my best for them.”
Gubecka, who had won a silver in the individual 5km event the day before, saluted the team’s ever-improving efforts after a week in which they had booked a full complement of places at the Paris Olympics.
“We’ve absolutely raised the bar within the last five years,” she said.
“I am proud of this team but even the juniors who are coming up want to be a part of this and we set the bar to that standard. As far as we can continue the legacy – especially with this relay – it really means something. I am just super proud to be an Aussie.”
Johnson enjoyed a brilliant first leg, putting Australia in fourth position which Guebecka held on to, before Sloman took the lead and Lee did the rest, moving up to Acerenza’s shoulder and slipping to the Italian’s inside before his last decisive burst.
It was Australia’s second gold of the multi-event aquatics championships, after Alysha Koloi’s diving title in the 1m springboard.
In Thursday’s (Friday AEDT) 10m platform synchro, the Australian pair of Cassiel Rousseau and Domonic Bedggood finished sixth (384.15pts) behind champions Lian Junjie and Yang Hao, who made it seven diving golds for China so far.
In the water polo, the Australian women were beaten 13-9 by Hungary and will now face Britain to earn a place in the quarter-finals.