As someone who is engulfed in swimming 365 days a year, and we know many of our readers are as well, the question “how was the swim meet?”, while so simple on its surface, can be a challenge. We know our spouses, our families, and our friends are asking to be polite, to show interest in what we love, and to make conversation, but it’s easily to be paralyzed by how to explain this deep complex story of swimming into an answer that they’ll understand and care about.
So throughout this meet, we’ll take a shot at distilling the answer to that question into a couple of bite-sized pieces to get the conversation started. This is a perfect share on Facebook for your aunties to read or to email back to your cousin on a Sunday morning.
Hopefully these launch into more specific follow-up questions and discussions where you can really flex your muscles.
HOW WAS THE MEET? – 3rd FINALS SESSION AT #TOKYO2020
- In one of the races of the meet, Kaylee McKeown of Australia, the World Record holder, won the women’s 100 backstroke, beating a field of prior World Record holders in the race. That’s Australia’s 2nd gold medal of the meet, which matches their 2016 output and blows by their 2012 output, and also is as many as the US has. The Americans still have 3 finals from Caeleb Dressel and Katie Ledecky left to build their count, but this is the closest the medals table race has been in decades.
- The Russian (Olympic Committee) men’s backstrokers went 1-2 thanks to Evgeny Rylov and Kliment Kolesnikov, breaking a 12-straight gold medal backstroke streak at the Olympics for the American men. Team USA had won 6 straight men’s 100 backstrokes entering the games. This is only the 5th time in Olympic history (including the boycotted 1980 Games) where the US hasn’t won gold or silver in this event. Defending champ Ryan Murphy took bronze.
- Lydia Jacoby lit up Alaskan televisions with a gold medal. She’s from the tiny town of Seward, Alaska (the start of the Iditarod trail), which was overrun with watch parties. Jacoby was not the American who most expected to land on top of this podium at only 17 and really coming on hard over the last 18 months, but she did her thing.
- South Africa’s Chad le Clos (the guy who did the shadowboxing thing with Phelps in Rio and elicited the now-famous “Phelps face) went out like a maniac in the men’s 200 fly semifinals. He led his heat by two-and-a-half seconds at the final turn, ultimately holding on by a tenth. His coaches couldn’t even watch as his arms essentially fell off his body and descended to the bottom of the pool on the last few strokes. It was amazing to watch.
- The British men Tom Dean and Duncan Scott went 1-2 in the 200 free. That now puts their country in contention for a World Record in the 800 free relay later in the meet.
Here’s when the second finals session starts in your timezone, you can watch it on NBC, BBC, CBC, EuroSport, or whatever else is listed here.
TOKYO 2020 OLYMPICS: POOL SWIMMING MEDAL TABLE AFTER DAY 3
| NATION | TOTAL MEDALS | GOLD | SILVER | BRONZE |
| USA | 12 | 3 | 3 | 6 |
| Australia | 7 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Great Britain | 3 | 2 | 1 | |
| Canada | 3 | 1 | 2 | |
| Russian Olympic Committee | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| Japan | 1 | 1 | ||
| Tunisia | 1 | 1 | ||
| China | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| Italy | 2 | 1 | 1 | |
| Netherlands | 1 | 1 | ||
| South Africa | 1 | 1 | ||
| Brazil | 1 | 1 |