4 x 100 metres Medley Relay, Men

Great Britain had won this event at the 2019 World Championships and were favored, especially as they had the men’s most dominant stroke swimmer in breaststroker Adam Peaty. They qualified easily, finishing second behind the surprising Italians, with the United States, always strong in relays, qualifying only seventh, which led to concern in American swimming circles that they would fall of the podium, which they had done earlier in the 4 x 200 free relay.

In the final Ryan Murphy opened the backstroke leg for the USA and put them in the lead, but Peaty was swimming the second leg for Great Britain and put them into the lead, as the USA dropped to third, also behind Italy. On the third leg Caeleb Dressel had the event’s fastest butterfly leg, putting the USA back into the lead as Britain’s James Guy could not match his pace and they dropped to second.

The anchor swimmer for the USA was Zach Apple, who had been criticized for a weak leg in the previous 4x2 relay, but he had swum that after a 100 metre freestyle semi-final. Here he redeemed himself with the fastest leg of the competition, narrowly ahead of Australia’s Kyle Chalmers (46.95 – 46.96). Apple’s anchor brought the Americans home for gold, winning in 3:26.78, taking more than a second off the world record they had set at Rio in 2016.

Behind the Americans, Great Britain held on comfortably for silver, with Italy edging out the Russian Olympic Committee team for the bronze medal. For Caeleb Dressel, this was his fifth gold medal of the 2020 Olympics, the dominant male swimming performance at Tokyo.