Australia's Brendon Smith won bronze successful the last of the men's 400m idiosyncratic medley, nabbing Australia's archetypal medal successful the lawsuit successful 37 years.
Smith stormed location to assertion Australia's archetypal medal astatine the Games from lane 4 successful a clip of 4:10.38, which was conscionable extracurricular the Australian grounds of 4:09.27 helium acceptable successful Saturday's heats.
American Chase Kalisz won golden successful a clip of 4:09.42 with chap US prima Jay Litherland claiming metallic successful 4:10:28.
It was Australia's archetypal medal successful the lawsuit since Rob Woodhouse claimed bronze astatine the Los Angeles Games successful 1984.
The 21-year-old Victorian acceptable an Australian grounds successful his vigor and was quickest into the last but a dilatory commencement gave the rival Americans excessively overmuch of a caput start.
The swimmer from Nunwading, recovered himself heading into the last freestyle limb successful seventh spot, erstwhile helium turned connected the jets connected the past thigh to astir snatch silver, falling ten-tenths of a 2nd abbreviated of 2nd place.
Smith qualified fastest for the last with a semi-final clip that would person won him the Olympic golden but was incapable to repetition the aquatics and clasp disconnected the American brace of Kalisz and Litherland. Speaking aft the race, the Olympic debutant was stoked with opening Australia's medal count.
"It's unbelievable I can't judge it," helium said.
"Twelve months agone erstwhile the games were postponed I thought 'Give maine different accidental different twelvemonth to amended my preparation'. To amended that overmuch and get connected the podium is perfectly incredible."
Smith got disconnected to a little than perfect start, touching the partition sixth astatine the 100m people and 3rd astatine the 200m aft the butterfly and backstroke legs.
He touched the partition past astatine the 300m and seventh astatine the 350m people but enactment connected a mightiness effort to pursuit down his rivals to triumph a bronze medal.
Smith was the lone Australian antheral to contention past year's International Swimming League successful Budapest wherever helium swam with the New York Breakers.
He was lone 1 of 2 Australians, on with Emily Seebohm, who made the travel to Hungary during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kalisz, a protégé and erstwhile grooming spouse of Olympic large Michael Phelps, flexed his muscles and past climbed atop the lane enactment aft claiming gold, splashing the h2o portion a contingent of his teammates cheered him from the stands of the astir bare Tokyo Aquatics Centre.
"U-S-A! U-S-A!" they chanted.
Kalisz was the metallic medalist successful the grueling lawsuit astatine the Rio Games 5 years ago. Now, astatine property 27, he's the champion successful the satellite astatine utilizing each 4 strokes.
Litherland came implicit to springiness the victor a hug, having ensured the Americans got disconnected to the champion imaginable commencement astatine the pool.
After putting their ain medals astir their necks during a masked-up triumph ceremony, Kalisz and Litherland walked astir the platform arm-in-arm. No societal distancing for the longtime teammates.
The Americans seized their accidental aft Japanese prima Daiya Seto stunningly failed to beforehand to the final, having finished ninth successful the preliminaries aft making a tactical mistake attempting to prevention his vigor for the medal race.
The finals were held successful the greeting Tokyo clip alternatively than their accustomed evening slot, a motion to U.S. tv web NBC, which wanted to amusement the finals unrecorded successful premier clip backmost successful America.
with AP
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