It All Comes Down To Day 9 As Australia Leads With 7 Golds, US Has 6 Golds Through Day 8

2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

The US had a huge night picking up two gold medals to put them only one behind Australia. Australia on the other hand did not win gold tonight.

The first gold for the US tonight came in the women’s 800 freestyle as Katie Ledecky earned the 9th gold medal of her career and 4th in the 800 freestyle. That made her the first woman to ever 4-peat in an event. Right after Ledecky, the US swam to gold in the mixed 4×100 medley relay, setting a new World Record in the process.

In all sports, the US won 17 total medals. That was the most-ever in a single day for the US since the 1988 Seoul Olympics.

Tomorrow night features four finals, with the men’s and women’s 4×100 medley relays at the end of the session. The medal table might come down to the final race.

Canada had a big night, winning one gold, one silver, and one bronze. Summer McIntosh won her 3rd gold of the meet, becoming the first Canadian to ever win three individual gold medals in one meet. Josh Liendo won silver in the men’s 100 fly alongside Ilya Kharun who won bronze, becoming the 2nd time in which two Canadians have stood on the same podium.

Despite having nine total medals, China still only has one gold this week after narrowly finishing in 2nd behind the US tonight in the mixed medley relay, winning silver.

SWIMMING MEDAL TABLE

Rank Nation Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 Australia 7 6 3 16
2 United States 6 12 7 25
3 France 4 1 1 6
4 Canada 3 2 3 8
5 Hungary 2 1 0 3
6 Italy 2 0 2 4
7 Great Britain 1 4 0 5
8 China 1 3 5 9
9 South Africa 1 1 0 2
10
Germany 1 0 1 2
Ireland 1 0 1 2
Romania 1 0 1 2
13 Sweden 1 0 0 1
14
Greece 0 1 0 1
Japan 0 1 0 1
16
Hong Kong 0 0 2 2
Netherlands 0 0 2 2
18
South Korea 0 0 1 1
Switzerland 0 0 1 1

ALL SPORTS MEDAL TABLE

Rank Country Gold Silver Bronze Total
1 China 16 12 9 37
2 United States 14 24 23 61
3 France 12 14 15 41
4 Australia 12 8 7 27
5 Great Britain 10 10 13 33
6 South Korea 9 7 5 21
7 Japan 8 5 9 22
8 Italy 6 8 5 19
9 Netherlands 6 4 4 14
10 Canada 4 4 7 15
11 Germany 4 4 2 10
12 Romania 3 3 1 7
13 Hungary 3 2 2 7
14 Ireland 3 0 2 5
15 New Zealand 2 4 1 7
16 Croatia 2 1 1 4
17
Belgium 2 0 2 4
Hong Kong 2 0 2 4
19 Azerbaijan 2 0 0 2
20 Brazil 1 4 5 10
21 Israel 1 4 1 6
22 Sweden 1 2 2 5
23 Georgia 1 2 0 3
Individual Neutral Athletes[A] 1 2 0 3
24 Switzerland 1 1 4 6
25 Spain 1 1 3 5
26
Kazakhstan 1 1 2 4
South Africa 1 1 2 4
28 Ukraine 1 1 1 3
29 Uzbekistan 1 0 2 3
30
Czech Republic 1 0 1 2
Guatemala 1 0 1 2
32
Argentina 1 0 0 1
Dominica 1 0 0 1
Ecuador 1 0 0 1
Norway 1 0 0 1
Philippines 1 0 0 1
Saint Lucia 1 0 0 1
Serbia 1 0 0 1
Slovenia 1 0 0 1
Uganda 1 0 0 1
41 Mexico 0 2 1 3
42 North Korea 0 2 0 2
43
Greece 0 1 3 4
Poland 0 1 3 4
45
Jamaica 0 1 1 2
Kosovo 0 1 1 2
Turkey 0 1 1 2
48
Denmark 0 1 0 1
Ethiopia 0 1 0 1
Fiji 0 1 0 1
Mongolia 0 1 0 1
Tunisia 0 1 0 1
53 India 0 0 3 3
54
Chinese Taipei 0 0 2 2
Moldova 0 0 2 2
Tajikistan 0 0 2 2
57
Austria 0 0 1 1
Egypt 0 0 1 1
Grenada 0 0 1 1
Lithuania 0 0 1 1
Portugal 0 0 1 1
Slovakia 0 0 1 1

In This Story

59
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

59 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
lotus
1 hour ago

china only needs 9 more golds to reach their target

Barty’s Bakery
Reply to  lotus
1 hour ago

If China randomly won the 3 events they’re entered in tomorrow to suddenly jump to 3rd on the table that would be hilarious

Barty’s Bakery
1 hour ago

USA is definitely topping the table. This was inevitable as soon as Australia missed a gold on day 5. I said from the start there was a small chance we could top the table but it required 3 things:

1. Short to recover from his illness and convert at least 1 of his 2 strong gold chances (didn’t happen)

2. China to block some key U.S. golds (China has only blocked one gold and it was Australia’s lol)

3. Kaylee to repeat the backstroke double (yay we actually did this one)

Basically as soon as Short was out we had an uphill battle, and while we’ve had some amazing performances, we’ve had multiple toss ups not fall our way that… Read more »

Stingy
2 hours ago

China with only 1 gold? It only seems like Qin Haiyang underperformed, how does 1 dude affect a team as good as China that much?

Oceanian
2 hours ago

All Aussies knew – unless a couple of miracles happened – the US would inevitably top the medal tally, though it’s been a closer race than some of us might have predicted.

With 15x Australia’s population the US will almost always top AUS (& the rest of the world) in swimming & all-sport Olympic medal tallies. But we sure do punch above our weight!

Wow
Reply to  Oceanian
1 hour ago

Aussies were favored after Fukuoka.

Barty’s Bakery
Reply to  Wow
1 hour ago

Wrong. Americans spent months after Fukuoka saying that they’re actually better and Australia got lucky and can’t perform in Europe and USA always has an off year before the Olympics.

You can’t now pretend that none of that happened and that Australia was always favoured to win.

Wow
Reply to  Barty’s Bakery
1 hour ago

What people said doesn’t negate what actually happened lol. Even if it makes you feel better…

Barty’s Bakery
Reply to  Wow
1 hour ago

You had a psycho meltdown about Australia and Cate Campbell after Fukuoka which was legitimately concerning, so I don’t really take your opinions about Australia seriously.

Also you say “Aussies were favoured” but then “what people said doesn’t matter”. So who decides what is favoured and what isn’t? It’s the consensus of what people say. You can try to spin this story however you like to make yourself feel better but you’ll still be wrong.

What you say makes no sense.

Troyy
Reply to  Barty’s Bakery
31 minutes ago

Funny how they disappeared for so many months after that meltdown.

Personal Best
Reply to  Wow
1 hour ago

It doesn’t negate what actually happened.

But ‘favored’ implies someone was doing the favoring. And it sure wasn’t most posters here.

Though I agree, coming in the Aussies on paper were the stronger team, even if most people didn’t want to accept that.

And indeed there were performances that came up short (no pun intended nor disrespect to Short haha…) like Short, and MOC (partially in her case – she still won that tremendous gold in the W200 free).

They weren’t able to convert some minor medals to gold… Kyle at least won silver in the men’s 100 free, and the men’s 4×100 free relay were just marginally off their 2023 WC winning time.

The US also failed to back… Read more »

Chris
3 hours ago

Bobby Finke does need to win 1500 free for the US swimming team.

Last edited 3 hours ago by Chris
Wow
Reply to  Chris
2 hours ago

Newsflash, Nobody is beating Wiffen

Barty’s Bakery
Reply to  Chris
2 hours ago

USA is topping the table regardless but probably would be good for morale

Aus Swimmer 92
6 hours ago

Ireland
Sweden
USA
USA

Will win the finals.

Aus to get silver and two bronzes

Jeff
Reply to  Aus Swimmer 92
5 hours ago

Sjostrom wins 50 free
Wiffen wins 1500 free
USA women win medley relay
China men win medley relay

Barty’s Bakery
Reply to  Aus Swimmer 92
2 hours ago

I don’t even think we get that. Silver (or bronze) in the women’s medley, nothing in the men’s medley or 1500, outside chance at a medal in the 50

Last edited 2 hours ago by Barty’s Bakery
Personal Best
Reply to  Barty’s Bakery
1 hour ago

Yeah… not sure Meg can bridge that gap. Jack… I’m not sure if at the same form she was when she set her PB.

It’s probably more likely in the 50 free the Aussie women miss a medal than pick up a minor one, even though there are two of them in the final, which in itself is impressive.

Aus Swimmer 92
Reply to  Barty’s Bakery
35 minutes ago

Trusting in Kyle and yong and temple were really good yesterday

Southerly Buster
7 hours ago

Emma McKeon now has 13 medals after the MMR prelims and has a chance to join Ledecky as female swimmer with the most Olympic medals (at least until LA2028) if Australia’s womens medley relay
gets on the podium tomorrow.

I notice McKeown’s backstroke split was 0.77 faster than Kylie Masse. If that is repeated in the relay tomorrow that will help mitigate any breaststroke deficit to Canada’s Sophie Angus and aid Australia’s podium hopes.

Hoping Emma will finish her career standing on the medal dais one more time.

Personal Best
9 hours ago

With four events left, and if we prematurely give Sjoestrom the 50 free, there are three strong gold medal chances for the US.

Australia is not likely winning another gold from here on in.

If the US win all three and end up with 9 gold medals, that’s 2 below their Tokyo total.
Australia’s 7 is also 2 below their Tokyo total.

That means a good, healthy spread of gold across a bunch of nations (hello Ireland, Romania, GB, Hungary).

9 gold for the US would make this the lowest gold medal total for US swimmers since 1988 (8 golds I think). Fair to say 1988 was a bit of an anomaly – as were the 1980s as a… Read more »

Personal Best
Reply to  Personal Best
8 hours ago

In terms of total medals, there’s a bit more speculation required.

The US could win 4 medals of any colour on the final day, bringing their total to 29.

29 for the US would be 1 less than their Tokyo total, and the first time with fewer than 30 medals for their swimmers since 1996 (27 medals there).

Australia at best could end up with 3 additional medals (but more likely 2), which would bring their total here to 18.

18 medals for Australia would be 3 below their Tokyo haul (21 – their best) and 2 below their Beijing total, but would still be one of the team’s biggest overall medal hauls.

France haven’t done this well since London… Read more »

Last edited 8 hours ago by Personal Best
Hot Take Bud
Reply to  Personal Best
2 hours ago

Italy too (two Golds)

Barty’s Bakery
Reply to  Personal Best
2 hours ago

You also have to take into account the increase in events.

2 of USA’s golds and two silvers are in events that didn’t exist in 1988 (Mixed medley, W1500, M800, W4x200 relay).

So if you’re making a direct comparison, it would be 7 gold (or less) and 25 medals (or less).

Personal Best
Reply to  Barty’s Bakery
1 hour ago

Good point – with the increased number of events, there are greater chances to grow that medal haul for the top nations, or get more countries winning gold.

M800 is a great example of that here.

Also got to account for China’s rise in world swimming since the early 90s… complicated history aside.

bob
Reply to  Barty’s Bakery
1 hour ago

One of the 88 US golds came in an event that hadn’t been competed in for 84 years, so even that low figure was boosted by an increase in events.

About Anya Pelshaw

Anya Pelshaw

Anya has been with SwimSwam since June 2021 as both a writer and social media coordinator. She was in attendance at the 2022, 2023, and 2024 Women's NCAA Championships writing and doing social media for SwimSwam. She also attended 2023 US Summer Nationals as well as the 2024 European Championships …

Read More »