Follow our Olympics coverage from the Paris Games.
NANTERRE, France — There are races at the Olympic swim meet that deliver individual glory, and then there are those that offer the chance to trash talk another country’s swimmers for the next four years.
In that latter category, not many events can hold a candle to the two relays that unfolded Saturday night in the Olympic pool, which ended with an even split between the Australians and Americans. That’s probably as it should be for the two best swimming countries in the 21st century. The Aussie women and the American men get to make everyone else pretty cranky until 2028 — and very thankful for having held off the Chinese this time around.
Why do these races carry so much weight?
Basically, everyone who begins competing in swimming starts with the freestyle. The 100 meters (or yards in some countries) is arguably the main race at that distance.
In a sense, emerging at the top of the 100-meter freestyle pyramid means fending off everyone who has ever raced in a pool. It follows, then, that winning the 4×100 relay allows a country to claim it has four of the best swimmers at the most popular distance in the most popular stroke. Not bad.
There’s also the matter of the guitars. That was in 2000 in Sydney in the men’s…
