Commonwealth Games, Day Five Finals: Matt Temple Drops the Hammer on Butterfly, Australia Wins Gold in Mixed Medley Relay
Australia won its sixth relay in six chances at the Commonwealth Games after the dust settled on an electric mixed 400 medley relay. The event features two male and two female swimmers racing for each country, and the Aussies chose to lead off with a female before putting men on butterfly and breaststroke, leaving them a deficit of almost 7.5 seconds to make up at its greatest extent.
But each of the four swimmers did enough to help the team come out on top by more than two seconds. Iona Anderson, making a rare medley relay appearance in place of injured backstroke dynamo Kaylee McKeown, led off in 59.44 before Sam Williamson followed up his wins in the 50 and 100 breaststroke with a 58.81 split on that stroke.
Matt Temple then swam the decisive butterfly leg, going 50.05 to surpass early leaders South Africa and pull into the lead. Two days after missing out n gold in the 100 fly by one hundredth, Temple had the fastest split here by more than a half-second. That gave Meg Harris a strong advantage going into the anchor leg, and the 100 freestyle Commonwealth champion responded with a split of 52.16.
Australia finished in 3:40.46, surpassing the Games record of 3:41.30 the Aussies set in 2022. The time would have been good enough for bronze at last year’s World Championships, a race where Australia won bronze.
As for the remaining medals, South Africa parlayed a sensational start into silver. Pieter Coetze, already two-thirds of the way to a sweep of the men’s backstroke gold medals, led off in 51.98 to lower the 100 back Games record of 52.20 he set earlier in the evening in the semifinal round. Coetze gave way to Michael Houlie, the silver medalist in the 100 breast, and he held the lead before Erin Gallagher and Aimee Canny did enough to remain in second place. The team finished in an African-record time of 3:42.61.
Notably, Chad le Clos earned a silver medal by virtue of his leg on the prelims relay for South Africa. That is the 20th Commonwealth Games medal of his career, the most by any swimmer.
Canada was in medal position after Josh Liendo split 50.63 on butterfly, but Scotland had Duncan Scott waiting in reserve to anchor. Using a male on freestyle is an unconventional strategy, but it worked for the Scottish team given its personnel, with Scott anchoring in 48.03. Angharad Evans was brilliant on the breaststroke leg with a 1:04.52 split while Matthew Ward swam backstroke and Keanna MacInnes butterfly on the way to a time of 3:43.70.
