Lydia Jacoby, of United States, swims in a mixed 4x100-metre medley relay final at the 2020 Olympics. Photo / AP
Lydia Jacoby, of United States, swims in a mixed 4x100-metre medley relay final at the 2020 Olympics. Photo / AP
As if the Olympic swimming programme wasn't fast-paced enough with its rapid-fire start times, officials decided we needed pure chaos.
That was the only way to describe the mixed medley relay, which closed the day session on Saturday.
If you're unfamiliar with the format, which we saw for the firsttime in Tokyo, teams are comprised of two women and two men, with each of the four swimmers allocated to one of the four traditional medley strokes — backstroke, breaststroke, butterfly and freestyle.
But forget about the race itself — which Great Britain won in front of China and Australia — just getting to the pool deck was a mission for many of the participants.
Caeleb Dressel fronted up to swim the freestyle for the US after already racing twice in the previous hour. Dressel won gold in the 100m fly — in world record time — before backing up quickly to win his 50m freestyle semifinal.
He was in need of a helping hand from his teammates but it fell apart on the second leg for the Yanks when breaststroker Lydia Jacoby dived into the pool and immediately ate a mouthful of goggles.
Lydia Jacoby, of United States, swims in a mixed 4x100-metre medley relay final at the 2020 Olympics. Photo / AP
In what was described as a swimmer's "worst nightmare", Jacoby swam up and back with her eye protection chomped between her teeth.
Despite Jacoby still pumping out a great time given the circumstances, the US didn't recover and when Dressel entered the pool last he had far too much ground to make up.
The British charged home and smashed the world record to win the inaugural event as a team of Kathleen Dawson, Adam Peaty, James Guy and Anna Hopkin touched in 3min 37.58sec to break the previous 3:38.41 mark set by China in Qingdao last year.
The Chinese were second in 3:38.86 and Australia third in 3:38.95.
The Dressel-led United States were relegated to fifth and the reaction Stateside was split between anger and admiration.
Emma McKeon swam the freestyle leg for Australia just six minutes after setting an Olympic record in the semifinals of the women's 50m freestyle.
Kaylee McKeown was part of the Aussie foursome too just over an hour after winning a gold medal in the 200m backstroke final and Matt Temple swam the butterfly leg after competing in the 100m butterfly final in the first race of the day.
The mixed relay was one of three swimming events debuting in Japan along with the men's 800m freestyle and women's 1500m freestyle.
Britain chose to lead off with Dawson, up against American backstroke giant Ryan Murphy and Australia's McKeown.
Peaty, who won 100m breaststroke gold in Tokyo, then took up the baton. Guy swam a storming butterfly leg to hand over to Hopkin, who brought it home ahead of China's Yang Junxuan, Australian 100m freestyle champion McKeon and a chasing Dressel.
