World Aquatics Championships 2023: Australia win both 4x100m freestyle relays with the women setting a new world record
The three medallists in each 4x100m freestyle relay final booked Olympic Games Paris 2024 quota spots for their National Olympic Committees – Australia and the United States in both relays, Italy in the men's, and P.R. China in the women's.
Swimming
Australia completed a gold-laden opening day in the swimming pool at the World Aquatics Championships 2023 in Fukuoka, Japan, winning both the women's and men's 4x100m freestyle relays on Sunday (23 July).
The women broke their own world record set at Tokyo 2020 in 2021 in the process, and never looked like being caught once lead-off swimmer Mollie O'Callaghan handed over to Shayna Jack in the lead.
From there, the Aussies pulled away to such an extent the only question was by how much they would break their own mark.
The answer was 1.73 seconds as they touched home in 3:27.96 ahead of USA and People's Republic of China.
Jack said immediately afterwards: "We had an amazing time, and I think that's what you saw in the pool – four girls having the best time of their lives."
Meg Harris added: This night has been insane already. You've seen amazing things already. Everything in swimming is a team effort, whether you're an individual swimmer or a relay."
The men's race was far closer. The USA went out fast – too fast, as leadoff man Ryan Held faded badly.
Six teams, led by Italy, found themselves more or less within a second of each other through 200m, and the Italians still held the lead going into the anchor leg.
Thomas Ceccon would have to hold off a charge from USA's Matt King and Aussie star Kyle Chalmers.
Chalmers had overhauled King by 350, and a late surge saw him touch the wall first in 3:10.16 with Ceccon and King rounding out the podium for the Italians and Americans.
"It was nice, it was set up for me nicely tonight," Chalmers said poolside after the win. "The boys were incredible. I knew that I had something special to give for the boys."
Olympic qualification quotas were on offer for the three medallists in each of the relays, meaning Australia (both), USA (both), China (women's) and Italy (men's) have booked spots in the 4x100m freestyle relay events at Paris 2024.
That made it four golds out of a possible five for Team Australia on day one of swimming.