Record-setting wins from Bobby Finke and the women's 4x100-meter medley relay team pulled the United States past Australia in the quadrennial duel between international rivals for the most swimming gold medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Finke won the men's 1,500-meter freestyle for the second straight Olympics, trimming nearly nine seconds off his time from the Tokyo Games three years ago in establishing a world record of 14 minutes, 30.67 seconds to eclipse the 14:31.02 that had stood since 2012.
Two events later, the U.S. women took their turn on the world-record carousel with a 3:49.63 that easily beat the record of 3:50.40 that had stood since 2019 and far outdistanced also-rans Australia and China in second and third.
The team included Regan Smith, Gretchen Walsh, Lilly King and Torri Huske.
Only a handful of the events across nine days in the pool didn't include an American or an Australian on the podium, and the U.S. finished with an overall 28-18 medals lead despite a surprise miss by defending champion Caeleb Dresel and the lack of a true breakout star like France's Leon Marchand or Canada's Summer McIntosh.
Australia got the gold rush started on the opening day of competition with wins in the women's 400-meter freestyle, where Ariarne Titmus beat Katie Ledecky, and the 4x100-meter women's relay, though the U.S. ended that day with a win in the men's 4x100.
The score was evened briefly on Day 2 when Huske and Walsh went 1-2 in the women's 100-meter butterfly, and it knotted up again Thursday after Australia's wins in the women's 200-meter freestyle and women's 100-meter backstroke were answered by Ledecky in the women's 1,500-meter freestyle and Kate Douglass in the women's 200-meter breastroke.
Australia's wins in the women's 4x200-meter freestyle relay, the men's 50-meter freestyle and the women's 200-meter backstroke appeared to ice the duel on Friday, but the U.S. swept Saturday's head-to-head races in the women's 800-meter freestyle and the mixed 4x100-meter medley relay and pushed ahead with Sunday's record-setters.
Australia has not won more swim golds than the U.S. since the 1956 Games in Melbourne.