2024 Paris Olympics: Australia flexes swimming muscle in rivalry with U.S.

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PARIS — One by one, the Australian Dolphins dipped in, and sent a Saturday statement rippling through the 2024 Olympics.

The Aussie women beat Team USA in swimming’s 4×100-meter relay here at Paris La Défense Arena, and flexed their collective muscle in a battle that’s expected to define this competition.

Led by Mollie O’Callaghan, a potential breakout star of these Games, the Aussie women won gold (3:28.92, an Olympic record), followed by the United States (3:30.20) and China (3:30.30).

The U.S. sent out a star-studded squad of Gretchen Walsh, Kate Douglass, Torri Huske and Simone Manuel. But, up against Australia’s speed, the Americans probably never stood a chance.

They, as a broader U.S. swim team, will get to the top of the podium soon enough. But the question is whether, by the end of nine days and 35 races, they will be atop the medal table.

That, for decades, was hardly a question worth asking. The U.S. has won the medal count and gold-medal count at every Olympic swim meet since the 1980s. It has not been beaten at a neutral site by a country not widely suspected of doping (East Germany) since World War II.

But here at the 2024 Games, dominance is in jeopardy. Because Australia is rising. And its Tier 1 stars might shine brighter than the American ones.

Australia has been closing the gap at the top of the field for several years now. In Tokyo, the Aussies came within two of the U.S. at the top of the gold-medal table (11-9). At last summer’s world championships, for the first time in over two decades, they broke through. They won 13 golds to the USA’s seven. And they crowed.

“I mean, Australia coming out on top of the world is one thing,” Olympic swimmer Cate Campbell said in a TV interview. “But it is just so much sweeter beating America.” She spoke about her joy in not hearing the “Star Spangled Banner” on Night 1. She called the U.S., and particularly then-head coach Bob Bowman, “such sore losers.”

“And so,” she said, “bring on Paris.”

Campbell didn’t qualify for Paris. But the bitterness has, in some minds, lingered. Most swimmers on both sides of the battle insist they aren’t focused on it; but U.S. women’s coach Todd DeSorbo admitted in May: “In the last two years, and particularly the last year, I think it’s turned into a little bit of a rivalry.”

The rivalry went mainstream last month during U.S. trials. Campbell’s comments resurfaced in an NBC video feature. A producer showed the video to Michael Phelps, who responded: “If somebody said that to me, I would lose it. I would literally make them eat every word they just said about me.”

Campbell then responded to Phelps’ response. Unfortunately, the war of words mostly stayed confined to those two. Swimmers, as a breed, are famously polite and distraction-averse. U.S. breaststroker Nic Fink once called it a “big brother-little brother rivalry”; but over the past few months, stars on both sides insisted this was a “rivalry of respect.” Neither wanted to stoke fires.

But both knew that it would ignite once they met in a western Paris pool. And Australia, after Night 1, has the upper hand.