Brendon Smith was the fastest to qualifier for the final of the 400m individual medley on Sunday, shaving over half a second of his individual medley record he set at the Australian Trials, claiming a new Australian and Oceania record (4:09.27). He is the first Aussie to go under 4:10.

Australia looks to have one gold there for the taking in the first session of finals, with the women’s 4x100m freestyle relay squad powering into the medal round with nearly a two second lead over their nearest rival, Holland. The Australian quartet of Mollie O’Callaghan (53.08sec), Megan Harris (52.73sec), Madi Wilson (53.10) and Bronte Campbell (52.82) bolted well clear of all rivals and the truly awesome thing is that Cate Campbell and Emma McKeon were rested. Both will come into the team for the final.

Even so, the team was on World Record pace coming into the final changeover and only finished 1.68sec outside the mark they set back in 2018. All of the girls swam brilliantly but special mention must go to the lead-off swimmer, Mollie O’Callaghan. Just 17 and appearing at her first Olympics, she unleashed a 53.08sec swim, a personal best by .17sec in an event in which improvements usually are by increments of a hundredth of a second.

McKeon may have been rested from the relay but she wasn’t putting her feet up, opening her seven-event campaign by dead-heating with Chinese rival Zhang Yufei to lead the 100m butterfly field into the semi-finals phase on Sunday. In doing so McKeon set a new Commonwealth Record of 55.82, bettering Maggie MacNeil’s record by .01.

Australia will also be well in the hunt for medals in the 400m freestyle final after Elijah Winnington and Jack McLoughlin deadheated to win their heat but in the fourth fastest time overall. Australia has won the 400m on six occasions at the Olympics and who is to say that one of them cannot surge through to claim the title for a seventh time.

The meet began on a surreal note. Smith, a 21-year-old Olympic debutant from the Nunawading club, surged through to the final of the 400m individual medley as the fastest qualifier. Swimming in the same heat which saw Japan’s reigning world champion Daiya Seto stunningly eliminated, Smith broke his own National Record with a swim of 4min.09.27sec.

Unheralded on the world stage, with no-one giving him so much as a chance of making the final let alone as the person who would occupy lane 4, Smith came from the clouds during an absorbing heat race. With Seto predictably leading out through the first leg of butterfly, Smith looked like he was battling even to finish in the top three, turning fourth into the backstroke. He clawed his way up to second but then drifted back to fourth in the breaststroke. At that point, there were questions whether he could finish in the top eight qualifyers but he powered home in the freestyle, surging to the lead with 10m remaining to touch out Alberto Razzetti of Italy (4.09.49). 

Seto, one of Japan's main hopes for a gold in its home Olympics, finished a distant fifth in 4.10.53, and inexplicably missed the final.

“I want to go faster any time I swim, so I am really happy with that,” a jubilant Smith told Channel 7 after the race. “And to be fastest into the final is really surreal.”

New Zealand Lewis Clareburt had broken the Oceania record just one heat before with a 4.09.49 but Smith, in the very next heat, didn’t allow him much of a reign. 

The first Australian swimmer into action at these Olympics, Se-Bom Lee of the famous Carlile club, put in a solid shift in his earlier heat, his time of 4.15.76 just 1.6sec outside what he swam at trials. But this was not an event he had qualified for and was only given the swim to allow him to prepare for his primary event, the 200m individual medley.

If Smith grabbing pole position was totally unexpected, order – of a kind – was restored when McKeon qualified equal fastest for the semi-finals in the women’s 100m butterfly with China's Zhang Yufei. To the naked eye, it seemed that McKeon touched first but that was not how the electronic timing saw it, awarding identical times of 55.82sec – a mere .34sec outside the world record set by defending Olympic champion Sarah Sjostrum.

The Swedish veteran, who turns 28 next month, staged an astonishing comeback from injury to be third fastest qualifier in 56.18sec. McKeon had always warned that Sjostrum would be in Tokyo to defend her Olympic title even after she fractured her elbow in a fall on the ice in Stockholm back in February and sure enough she was, even though she only began swimming butterfly in May.

“I knew the Chinese girl next to me would be fast,” McKeon said after the race. “I saw her go pretty quick at the end of last year. Didn’t really know what anyone was going to do. I feel like everyone is kind of an even playing field once you get to the semis and finals, so I’m just excited to be here,” said McKeon. 

Certainly on the evidence of her race, McKeon has come into these Games with blistering speed but the real question is how resilient her endurance will be. Over the course of her seven events, she will have to swim 25 laps against the fastest flyers and freestylers in the world but luring her on will be the thought that she could finish in Tokyo as the greatest Olympic swimming medallist Australia has ever produced. She already has four. If she reaches 10 she will eclipse Ian Thorpe and Leisel Jones, who have nine apiece.

Australia’s other entrant in the 100m butterfly, Brianna Throssell finished with 58.08sec to just scrape into the semis in 16th place. 

Dead heats were the order of the day, with Winnington and McLoughlin, both recording identical times, 3min.45.20sec, to win the final heat of the 400m freestyle. But while the placings were predictable, the time most certainly wasn’t.  

Astonishingly, they finished 2.55sec slower than Winnington’s time at the selection trials last month as both Australians looked to have been caught up in the race itself, not looking at the bigger picture. 

They had gone into the event ranked respectively one and two in the world but the door now has been thrown wide open in Sunday’s final, with German Henning Muhlleitner (3.43.67), Austrian Felix Auboeck (3.43.91) and Gabriele Detti of Italy (3.44.67) qualifying ahead of them. Significantly, however, none of them swam faster than the two Australians did at trials.  

Australia failed to qualify either of its entrants in the men’s 100m breaststroke, with Matt Wilson and Zac Stubblety-Cook both finishing a fraction over the minute in their heat, with 59.68sec the 16th placed time for the semi-finals. Wilson was fractionally the faster, posting 1.00.03 to Stubblety-Cook’s 1.00.05.

Wayne Smith

#HaveAGo at Beach Volleyball