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.
Top Stories on Night 7 at the Olympics
- Caeleb Dressel, America’s new favorite Olympian, won the 100 fly in World Record fashion. That was the first of 3 swims in the session – a grueling schedule that is rarely seen at this level. He later won his semifinal of the 50 free, and swam on the anchor of the mixed medley relay.
- Great Britain was dominant in another World Record in the first-ever mixed medley relay final. That relay, which features 2 men and 2 women for each country, with a lap of each stroke swum by different swimmers, is new to the Olympics this year. Dressel was the Team USA anchor, but they finished only 5th – the Americans’ lowest-ever relay finish in any relay event at the Olympics. Dressel called the result “unacceptable.”
- Katie Ledecky won her 3rd-straight 800 free, making her just the 3rd female swimmer to win 3-straight gold medals in the same individual event. It also gave her double-digit medals (she’s the 37th modern Olympian to do so) and gave her the most individual medals by a female Olympic swimmer in history.
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.
The meet ends on Day 8 with 5 medal races: the men’s 50 free, women’s 50 free, men’s 1500 free, women’s 400 medley relay, and men’s 400 medley relay. Caeleb Dressel will swim two of those races, the 50 free and 400 medley relay, giving him the chance to add to his 3 Olympic gold medals won so far.
Swimming Medal Table Through Day 7:
| NATION | TOTAL MEDALS | GOLD | SILVER | BRONZE |
| USA | 26 | 8 | 9 | 9 |
| Australia | 18 | 7 | 3 | 8 |
| Great Britain | 7 | 4 | 2 | 1 |
| People’s Republic of China | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1 |
| ROC | 5 | 2 | 2 | 1 |
| Japan | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Canada | 5 | 1 | 3 | 1 |
| South Africa | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Hungary | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Tunisia | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Italy | 5 | 0 | 2 | 3 |
| Hong Kong, China | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Netherlands | 2 | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| Switzerland | 2 | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| Brazil | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Finland | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Germany | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| Ukraine | 1 | 0 | 0 | 1 |