Paris Olympics: U.S. Men Have Work Ahead on the Path to 2028 Games
On the final day of the Olympic swimming competition, the United States completed a late surge (fueled by a friendly event schedule) to catch up to and surpass Australia in the gold-medal count, winning by a margin of 8-7 while maintaining a 28-18 edge in overall medals. That eliminated any potential of both countries claiming victory like at the 2023 World Championships, when Australia won more golds but the Americans had more total medals.
But that rivalry success should not mask what was measurably the worst performance by the Americans in 36 years, since the 1988 Olympics in Seoul. That was the last time the Americans did not reach double-digits in gold medals in swimming. The 28 total medals marks the first time since the 2004 Games that the team has not collected 30 total medals. Back then, the swimming program was smaller, with the women’s 1500 freestyle, men’s 800 freestyle and mixed 400 medley relay, all events in which the Americans reached the podium this week, not yet added to the lineup.
The American men were victorious in the 400 freestyle relay, but they did not win gold in the 400 medley relay for the first time ever. Moreover, they narrowly avoided a 120-year streak of winning an individual gold medal, a run stretching back to Charles Daniels winning the 440-yard freestyle at the third edition of the modern Olympics in 1904 in St. Louis.
It took until the very last individual event of the meet until Bobby Finke finally got the job done in the 1500 freestyle, breaking a 12-year-old world record in the process, and now this year’s team joins the 1932 and 1956 teams as the only groups to claim just one individual gold.
Bobby Finke was the top-performing American male swimmer in Paris — Photo Courtesy: Peter H. Bick
Out of the 28 medals, the men accounted for only nine, three relays plus individual medals by Finke (800 free and 1500 free), Carson Foster (400 IM), Nic Fink (100 breaststroke), Luke Hobson (200 freestyle) and Ryan Murphy (100 backstroke). Four days of meet action passed without a single individual medal, as Murphy stunningly faded in the 200 back semifinals, Matt Fallon missed the top-eight of the 200 breast and Foster finished just a tenth short of the top-three in the 200 IM.
Notably, those disappointing results were almost completely contained to the men’s team. The women accounted for 18 medals, reaching the podium in all but three events. Lilly King (100 breast) and Gretchen Walsh (50 free) each fell just one hundredth short in their respective events while Phoebe Bacon was four hundredths away from a second American medal in the 200 back. Neither swimmer underperformed; they were just frustratingly close to the podium.
American swimmers were never even a longshot to win a medal in the 200 free. The only true misses were Alex Walsh’s disqualification in the 200 IM final and Katie Grimes finishing outside in the 1500 free final, but note that she had captured silver in the 400 IM the previous night.
Yes, there were plenty of silver and bronze medals, but there’s only so much you can expect against the likes of Summer McIntosh, Kaylee McKeown, Ariarne Titmus and Sarah Sjostrom. A three-and-a-half second victory in the women’s 400 medley relay, in world-record time to boot, emphatically closed out the successful competition for that team.
The men, though? For whatever reason, not pretty. There were six occasions throughout the meet when American men finished nowhere close to the medals despite swimming times at Olympic Trials that would have been good enough for a top-three result. Yes, some athletes, coaches and analysts expressed concerns that this was a slow pool, but that does not explain these numerous major drop-offs. On the contrary, the only American man to unexpectedly win a medal was Luke Hobson in the 200 free. Not a single American man qualified for the final in the 100 or 200 butterfly.
Throughout the week in Paris, some veteran American men showed signs of the late-career fade that plagues all swimmers eventually, while the cadre of first-timers could not replicate their times from Trials and/or last year’s World Championships.
Remember, however, that significant weaknesses within the U.S. men’s team is not new; these have existed for years, but the medal tally does not reflect those issues when Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte and later Dressel are pulling off prolific individual performances. With Phelps and Lochte long retired and Dressel not recapturing his top form, those issues were clear in Paris.
Now, the Americans have four years to go until the Los Angeles 2028 Olympics, where the intent will surely be to delight the crowd at SoFi Stadium with their performances, just like Leon Marchand did for French fans at La Défense Arena. The men’s team has significant work to undertake and corrections to make before that if they hope to dominate again.
I understand something has to change for the US swim team after their Olympic performance screw up in France 🇫🇷.