4 x 200 metres Freestyle Relay, Men

Four years earlier in Sydney this event had seen Ian Thorpe lead the Australian team to a clear win over perennial Olympic champions, the United States, and smash the world record as well. Since Sydney the Australians had established themselves as the best team in the world and had won both world titles in the intervening period. The USA had slowly begun to regroup and a gap of 9 seconds between the Australians and Americans in 2001 had shrunk to just over a second at the 2003 World Championships. The emergence of Michael Phelps as a fully-fledged superstar began to tip the balance back in the Americans’ favour as was shown by Phelps pulling out a lead of over a second during the opening leg of the Olympic final then Peter Vanderkaay on the third leg pushed the US lead out a little further. Ian Thorpe tried to systematically break down the gap on the American anchor but, try as he might, it was not enough to haul back Klete Keller and the US held onto a lead of just thirteen hundredths of a second at the end.