Night three of swimming at the 2024 Olympic Games has just finished, with Team USA adding four medals to their count: The Americans now have 11 total in Paris (so far).
In the women’s 400-meter individual medley—a physically taxing race in which swimmers must execute all four strokes (freestyle, backstroke, breaststroke, and butterfly) over two laps each—Katie Grimes won silver and Emma Weyant nabbed bronze. Their two-three finale was about as strong a finish as the US could have hoped for; gold went to Summer McIntosh, the 17-year-old Canadian phenom with the world record in the event.
The men’s 200-meter freestyle was a nailbiter: the top four finishers ended the race with only .15 seconds between them. Luke Hobson, who took bronze in the end, was only .07 seconds behind the winner, Romania’s David Popvici. And in the men’s 100-meter backstroke, Ryan Murphy is walking away happy with bronze. This marks the third Games in a row in which he’s medaled.
There are also two golds in the mix: Torri Huske’s extraordinary women’s 100-meter butterfly race (with a one-two American finish, no less, as Gretchen Walsh earned silver by finishing just .04 seconds behind her) and the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay, anchored handily by eight-time gold medalist Caeleb Dressel.
Katie Ledecky, who is one of winningest Olympians of all time, alongside Dressel, nabbed a bronze in the women’s 400-meter freestyle event; she fell to Ariarne Titmus of Australia, her biggest rival.
Ledecky seemed pleased and undeterred, though. She has more gold chances ahead. “It was such a good field,” she told the press. “There was a chance I could have not gotten a medal. I’m grateful for the effort I put in, happy with the medal, and looking forward to my next races.”
Carson Foster took bronze in the men’s 400-meter individual medley, and Nic Fink, at the age of 31, won his first-ever medal, a silver, in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke.
“It’s just a number, in some senses, but in others it means more,” Fink said to the media, referring to his age. “There were windows to close my career earlier and I kept going for the love of the sport. To have this much success this late has been icing on the cake. More than anything, it’s been fun.”
US Swimming has also clinched a medal in another relay: the women’s 4x100-meter freestyle event. Taking silver, the women’s lineup consisted of Kate Douglass, Walsh, Huske, and Simone Manuel. The aforementioned men’s team included Jack Alexy, Chris Guiliano, Hunter Armstrong, and Dressel.
“I was really excited to lead off the relay and get things going,” said Alexy. “It wasn’t a perfect swim for me, but we got the job done and it was really fun watching the rest of my teammates execute their races. That was really exciting and pretty surreal, I was pretty hyped in the moment.”