Tokyo Olympics 2021: Australia wins bronze in the 4x200m women’s freestyle final

An incredible race saw Australia claim bronze whern most had them a dead-cert for gold. Questions were asked about the team sleection, now the coaches have responded.

The Aussie 4x200m freestyle team with their bronze medals. Picture: Alex Coppel

The penny still hasn’t dropped for the Australian coaches responsible for the selection blunder that saw the Dolphins on the wrong end of one of the biggest upsets in Olympic swimming history.

While the whole country is shaking their heads — and fists — about how a team that started at shorter odds than Winx could possibly be beaten, the men who decided the line-up for the final still won’t accept they stuffed up.

Unlike the two teams who finished ahead of Australia after picking their line-ups for the women’s 4x200m freestyle final on current form, the Dolphins preselected entirely different line-ups for the heats and finals.

The plan, according to head coach Rohan Taylor and assistant Dean Boxall, responsible for preparing the relay team, was to ensure Australia had a fresh line-up in the final.

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Emma McKeon, Madison Wilson and Ariarne Titmus look on as the race finishes. Australia claims Bronze. Picture: Alex Coppel

“All the girls did a fantastic job. Heat swimmers and the final girls, they all stood up,” Boxall said.

“It was a strategy that everyone knew about. All the girls in the heat knew about it.”

The glaring problem with the strategy was that Australia did not have their four fastest swimmers in the final.

That’s a rookie error to make at the Olympics and it backfired in devastating fashion as Australia finished third behind China and the US, missing gold by less than a second with all three teams going under the world record.

In picking the team for the final, the selectors chose the first four finishers from last month’s trials — Ariarne Titmus, Emma McKeon, Madi Wilson and Leah Neale — believing that was the fastest combination.

But that didn’t take into account every swimmer’s current form, particularly Mollie O’Callaghan, the 17-year-old wonderkid who has made huge improvements in Tokyo.

In the heats, she broke the junior world record by swimming a time of 1:55.11 that would have placed her fifth in the 200m individual final yet she wasn’t even considered for the final.

Teen wunderkind Mollie O'Callaghan was left out of the final. Picture: Adam Head

“We didn’t reconsider when the strategy and the team was already in place,” Boxall said.

“The girls knew their job was to get the girls into the final. They knew the strategy. I coach Mollie, Mollie’s my girl and everybody’s applauding Mollie for her effort.”

The decision to leave O’Callaghan out has stumped everyone after she had swum faster than each of the Australians except Titmus.

Her own mother Toni said it “made no sense” and Olympic legend Ian Thorpe was at a loss to explain it.

The response on social media was a mix of embarrassment and anger with plenty asking whether the Australians had been too arrogant, believing they had the gold medal in the bag regardless of who they picked.

Taylor denied this and said he wouldn’t have changed a thing because he was not sure O’Callaghan could have reproduced her performance in the morning final after swimming in the heats the night before.

“(There was no) guarantee of her going quicker when we have fresh cattle, fresh athletes to go in,” Taylor said.

The problem with that theory is that three of the four Chinese women who won the gold raced in the heats the night before then went faster in the morning. Two of the four Americans in the final also raced in the heats but went quicker in the final.

Originally published as Tokyo Olympics 2021: Australia wins bronze in the 4x200m women’s freestyle final