Team USA has its first gold medal in Paris.
Swimmers Jack Alexy, Hunter Armstrong, Caeleb Dressel and Chris Guiliano rolled to a victory in the men's 4x100m freestyle relay on Saturday to capture Team USA's first gold of the 2024 Olympics.
The two youngsters who beat Dressel at the U.S. trials in the 100m freestyle, Alexy and Guiliano, started things off for the Americans. Then it was Armstrong turning the fastest leg of all to give Dressel a commanding lead to work with at the end.
The quartet of Americans posted a time of 3:09.28 to win a third straight Olympic title in the event. Australia finished in 3:10.25 to take silver and Italy earned bronze with a time of 3:10.70.
The United States got the better of Australia after the Aussies won two of the first three swimming medal events at Paris La Defense Arena earlier Saturday. Ariarne Titmus repeated as champion in the women's 400m freestyle, where Katie Ledecky won bronze, and Australia won gold in the women's 4x100m freestyle relay, where Team USA earned silver.
“There’s no better way to finish a night like that," U.S. swimming legend Michael Phelps said on the broadcast. "To hammer home like that, make a statement to finish Day 1 -- and a pretty big statement, too. We thought that race was going to be pretty close. We obliterated that field.”
Dressel, who won five gold medals at the pandemic-delayed 2020 Tokyo Games, now owns eight career medals -- all of them gold. He's just the third athlete to ever capture at least eight Olympic medals that are all gold, joining Usain Bolt and Ray Ewry. And Dressel can still add to his total in Paris via the 50m freestyle and 100m butterfly.
Meanwhile, Alexy, Armstrong and Guiliano each picked up their first Olympic medal.
Ryan Held and Matt King will also receive medals after helping the U.S. qualify for the 4x100m relay final in Saturday morning's prelims. Held and King were swapped out in favor of Alexy and Giuliano for the final.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
