2020 TOKYO SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES
- When: Pool swimming: Saturday, July 24 – Sunday, August 1, 2021
- Open Water swimming: Wednesday, August 4 – Thursday, August 5, 2021
- Where: Olympic Aquatics Centre / Tokyo, Japan
- Heats: 7 PM / Semifinals & Finals: 10:30 AM (Local time)
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- Day 8 Finals Heat Sheet
Australia’s Emma McKeon continues to have the meet of her life, as the 27-year-old busted out a gold medal-winning performance in the women’s 50m freestyle.
After establishing herself as the top-seeded swimmer with an Olympic record of 24.02 in the semi-finals, McKeon crushed a mark of 23.81 to drop that result down even further. The Aussie’s podium-topping effort represented the sole outing under the 24-second threshold, as runner-up Sarah Sjostrom of Sweden notched 24.07 for silver and defending gold medalist from Rio, Pernille Blume of Denmark, rounded out the top 3 in 24.21.
McKeon represents the first-ever Australian woman to take 50m freestyle gold at an Olympics. This pairs with an earlier first in the women’s backstroke, where Kaylee McKeown became the nation’s first-ever backstroke gold medalist.
Additionally for McKeon, this 50m freestyle gold is just another accolade in Griffith University’s stunning Tokyo resume at these Games. She had already grabbed individual bronze in the 100m fly, as well as gold in the 100m free.
On a relay level, she has collected gold as a member of the women’s 4x100m free, bronze on the women’s 4x200m free and bronze on the mixed medley relay.
As such, McKeon has bagged up a massive 6 Olympic medals with one more event, the women’s medley relay, yet to happen in this session.
Entering this session tied with Olympic greats Ian Thorpe and Leisel Jones with nine Olympic medals, McKeon’s performance here in this 50m free now renders her the title of most decorated Australian Olympian. She is the only Australian to have ever won 10 Olympic medals in total.
I’m American and I have been giving the Aussies crap all week but this is the best swimming performance I’ve seen from a female at the Olympics. Probably tied with Ledecky 2016 actually.
8:04, 1:53.7, 3:56.4?
she now has goated status, she’s just a tier below Phelps now
Alright, let’s settle down here. I would say this performance is even a large tier below Phelps’ Athens performance (4 Golds, 3 Bronze VS 6 Golds, 2 Bronze). Keep in mind one of those Bronze medals she got was from an event that didn’t exist in Phelps’ time (the 4×100 Mixed Medley Relay). Still incredible though and definitely among the GOAT female swimmers & Olympic performances!
Phelps in Athens was 6G, 2B.
GOAT status in Australia- has basically every medal record…
Such a workhorse. Not just best swimmer here but best Olympian of the whole meet..
Female MVP of the meet! 7 medals, 4 golds, and practically an Olympic Record of PB every time she jumped in the water!
lmaooo not stan twitter here
Legendary performance, almost dressel 2019 esque with the amount of good relay splits
such a clutch swimmer for the Aus, seems like shes often “outshined” by titmus and campbell in US media but damn shes good!
That’s because the rivalry makes a good narrative and McKeon is a fairly shy person so I doubt she minds missing out on some media coverage.