It was far from a perfect day for the Australians and the Americans, but the swimming powerhouses still find themselves tied atop the medal table after day 1 of the World Championships.
Australia got a shock early when 2015 world leader and Junior World Record-holder Mack Horton missed the final of the 400 free. Horton fell all the way off to 3:47.37 for 11th place after coming into the meet as perhaps the foremost challenger to gold medal favorite Sun Yang.
Australia’s Courier-Mail quotes Horton as saying he struggled to find a good pace in his first major international appearance.
“That just being my first major meet I wasn’t really sort of aware of that sort of pace,” he said. “I was aware of it but I wasn’t I guess ready to swim that quick in the heat.”
The Americans, meanwhile, took some heat on day 1 for leaving Olympic champion Nathan Adrian off their 4×100 free relay, then missing the final. (More on that here.)
But both nations still had enough firepower left to collect a gold medal each – Australia in the women’s 4×100 free relay and the U.S. in the 400 free. Both are events each team expected to dominate, Australia being the world record-holders in that relay and featuring the Campbell sisters, and Team USA with phenom Katie Ledecky in the distance races.
Both teams also took a bronze medal – the U.S. in that women’s 4×100 free relay and Australia in the 400 free with Jessica Ashwood.
Also winning gold on day 1 were France (men’s 4×100 free relay) and China (Sun Yang in the 400 free).
We’ve noted how much swimming talent is starting to spread out across the world, and that parity is already evident in medal totals. Only the U.S., Australia and the Netherlands have won more than 1 medal so far, and 9 different nations have won medals in just 4 medal events.
Here’s the full medal tally for pool swimming:
| Rank | Nation | Gold | Silver | Bronze | Total |
| 1 | Australia | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| 1 | USA | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| 3 | France | 1 | 1 | ||
| 3 | China | 1 | 1 | ||
| 5 | Netherlands | 2 | 2 | ||
| 6 | Great Britain | 1 | 1 | ||
| 6 | Russia | 1 | 1 | ||
| 8 | Canada | 1 | 1 | ||
| 9 | Italy | 1 | 1 |
the medal table is tabulated with gold medals not total medals. It,s only the US media that uses total medals. So I China leads in Kazan on gold medals for now but it can change.
And US got a gold in synchronized swimming if we count that lol. That was unexpected.
I would have put Netherlands in 3rd place as they have 2 medals to the other countries 1 and would be in 3rd if the meet were being scored. This is very interesting considering everybody’s panic so far.