World Swimming Championship: Mack Horton anchors Aussies to gold in 4x200m freestyle relay
With Sun Yang and the Chinese team finishing a distant sixth, Mack Horton finally got his moment in the sun as the Aussie 4x200m freestyle relay team added to an impressive medal haul.
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Swimming’s new global hero Mack Horton proved that the good guys belong on the top of the podium after he produced a late burst of acceleration to win gold for Australia in the men’s 4x200m freestyle relay at the world championships last night.
Applauded by swimmers the world over for his strong statement against drug cheats, Horton was beaming from ear to ear when he stepped on to the dais to collect his first world championship gold medal, alongside his team mates Clyde Lewis, Kyle Chalmers and Alexander Graham.
Together, they gave Australia a fifth gold medal in South Korea to show that the Dolphins are back after a lean few years.
Horton swam the final leg tactically perfect. He dived in with a lead at the last changeover but dropped back to fourth place after the first 100.
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But he was just toying with his rivals. They had all gone too hard too early, so he reeled them in and surged clear to win easily with Russia taking silver and the United States bronze.
“It was a very good end,” Horton said when asked how his week went.
“That anchor leg’s always tough, there’s a lot of pressure on it but I think it’s always a privilege to be able to anchor your team and just put the body on the line for the boys.
“That’s usually how I do a 200 and I think a lot of people in relays overswim the front end so you know you can call them out on it and double down and back the back end basically.”
Australia have now won four of the five relays in Gwangju so that looms as their biggest strength heading into the Tokyo Olympics.
“We have been doing a lot of work on our relays. The freestyle and medley people have got together and we’ve been doing changeovers,” Graham said.
“I also think it’s coming down to the team environment. We have such a close team at the moment. It’s a small team but we are super-strong at the moment and everyone is supporting each other and has each other’s back.”
For Chalmers, the win was the perfect comeback to what has been a mixed week after he missed out on the 200m final and was narrowly beaten by a sensational performance from Caeleb Dressel in the 100m.
“Obviously it’s different swimming a 200m in a relay because you don’t all go in at the same time so it’s trying to sticking to your guns,” he said.
“We’ve done relay camps this year and I think it is really paying off for the Aussies and we are doing a really good job in the pool.”
Australia’s win in an event we haven’t dominated since the days of Ian Thorpe also provided the perfect rebuke to Sun Yang in his last appearance at the championships.
The cocky Chinese champion had infuriated everyone with his boorish celebrations after his wins in the 200m and the 400m, which triggered the silent protests from Horton and Duncan Scott.
But last night, the towering Sun climbed out of the water as the loser, after his team finished sixth, avoiding any chance of another podium protest.
Sydney’s Matthew Wilson captured a silver in the men’s 200m breastroke final less than half an hour before the relay.
Wilson shocked everyone when he equalled the world record of 2:06.67 in his semi-final but he lost it 24 hours later when Russia’s Anton Chupkov glided past him on the last lap to win gold in 2:06.12.
“I came in here with the goal of just going into the finals and doing my best so to equal the record yesterday was a big shock to me and I’ve only gone 0.01 over that so I’m very happy,” he said.
“Anton just executed executed his race perfectly. He’s definitely the best 200m breaststroker that’s ever been really.
“ He got out of the water and the first thing he said to me was ‘we’ve made history.
“We had three people go 2:06 which is just unheard of so there’s definitely some consolation in that I get beaten by somebody who broke the world record by half a second.”
Originally published as World Swimming Championship: Mack Horton anchors Aussies to gold in 4x200m freestyle relay
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