Unless the U.S. can win both medley relays in today's final swimming session, the Australians, who have earned seven golds to the Americans’ six, are "likely to displace” them as the country with the most swimming golds at the Paris Games. The U.S. have topped the swimming gold medal table at the last eight Olympics. This year's U.S. squad, which has collected 25 medals to Australia’s 16 going into the final night, still “will top the overall tally.” But, for the last six decades, the Americans have “judged themselves by the gold standard” (BOSTON GLOBE, 8/3).
Not since the 1956 Melbourne Games has Australia “downed the USA in the pool at an Olympics.” The U.S. looks like they will “take home their worst haul of gold medals in the pool since 1988.” That is “largely because" French swimmer Leon Marchand and Canada's Summer McIntosh “keep pinching golds away from the Americans” (SYDNEY MORNING HERALD, 8/4).
