Competitors 100 from 23 nations Start date 2000 | Winning time 3:13.67 WR | |
Dates September 16, 2000 (heats & final) Location Sydney International Aquatic Centre, Sydney, Australia Venue Sydney International Aquatic Centre | ||
The men's 4×100 metre freestyle relay event at the 2000 Summer Olympics took place on 16 September at the Sydney International Aquatic Centre in Sydney, Australia.
For the first time in 36 years, the Australians solidified their triumph in front of a raucous home crowd as they upset the undefeated Americans to capture an Olympic title in the event. Leading by 0.15 seconds at the final relay exchange, Ian Thorpe was passed by U.S. swimmer Gary Hall, Jr. at the 350 meters mark, but eventually recovered and touched the wall first with an anchor of 48.30 to deliver the Aussie foursome of Michael Klim (48.18), Chris Fydler (48.48), and Ashley Callus (48.74) a gold-medal time in 3:13.67. Leading off the race, Klim also established a global standard to shave 0.03 seconds off the record set by his Russian training partner Alexander Popov in 1994. As Thorpe jumped out of the pool to congratulate his team, Klim pretended to play an air guitar to mock Hall's pre-Olympic race reference, claiming that the Americans would "smash the Aussies like guitars".
Team USA's Hall (48.24), Anthony Ervin (48.89), Neil Walker (48.31), and Jason Lezak (48.42) lost a powerful challenge to the Aussies only for the silver in a new American record of 3:13.86, the second-fastest time in history, finishing 1.25 seconds under their five-year-old world record. Meanwhile, Brazil's team of Fernando Scherer (49.79), Gustavo Borges (48.61), Carlos Jayme (49.88), Edvaldo Silva Filho (49.12) earned their first ever relay medal in 20 years, as they took home the bronze with a time of 3:17.40.
Germany (3;17.77), Italy (3:17.85), Sweden (3:19.60), and France (3:21.00) rounded out the championship field, while the Russians, led by Popov, were disqualified due to an early relay launch from Andrey Kapralov on the lead-off leg.
In the absence of Pieter van den Hoogenband on the morning prelims, the Dutch team posted an excellent time of 3:18.32 to lead the first heat, but was cast out of the final race for an early jumping attempt from Dennis Rijnbeek during the second exchange.
Records
Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.
The following new world and Olympic records were set during this competition.