Australia ended the opening night of the swimming world championships with a dose of double golden joy after the country’s men and women prevailed in the 4x100m freestyle relay events in Singapore.
There was heartbreak to begin the night after Australian Sam Short was pipped by 0.02 of a second by German world record holder Lukas Maertens in a thrilling 400m men’s freestyle showdown. But the relay events proved to be Australia’s saviour, propelling them to the top of the standings.
First, Olivia Wunsch pulled off a huge late comeback to fire Australia to an upset victory over the US in the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay. Then Kyle Chalmers achieved the same result for Australia’s men, reeling in a sizeable lead from the US to snare gold.
The Australian men’s quartet of Chalmers, Flynn Southam, Kai Taylor and Maximillian Giuliani posted a world championship-record time of 3:08.97 to defeat Italy (3:09.58) and the fading US (3:09.64). Earlier, in the first medal event of the championships, Short overcame an early deficit to hit the lead with less than half the race remaining, but was narrowly beaten by Maertens.
In a stacked women’s 400m freestyle field, Australian Lani Pallister (3:58.87) produced a personal-best effort but it was only enough to finish fourth. Canadian world record holder Summer McIntosh (3:56.26) blitzed the field to win gold.
