Australian team leader Kyle Chalmers unwittingly summed it up better than everyone else.
The 100m freestyle world champion’s thoughts ring loud and clear at a time when swimming is in disarray over the final medal tally for the 2023 World Swimming Championships in Fukuoka.
The Dolphins are leaving Japan with an astonishing haul of five world records and 13 gold medals — something Australia hasn’t accomplished since 2005.
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It is just the second time since the 1956 Melbourne Olympics Australia has beaten the United States in the medal tally of a major international meet.
It is also the first time Australia has finish ahead of the United States since 2001.
However, that’s not how everyone sees it.
Despite being blown out of the water, the Americans were handed the overall best team award trophy on Sunday night, leading to widespread criticism.
The American team powered home to win three gold medals on the final day of the meet — but were still limited to seven gold medals.
Despite this, the United States team were handed the Best Team trophy on the back of the total number of medals won where they beat Australia 38 to 25.
Swimming Australia’s head coach Rohan Taylor did not try to hide his disagreeance.
“The way the award is presented is on total medals, that’s the award,” Taylor said.
“We (Australia) have always looked at, and I was brought up by the Don Talbot era, that gold medals were the most important.
“So from our perspective, we were the best performed team on the gold medal count.
“And when you look at the website and you look at the medal tally, we sit on top of that.
“That is how I feel. But I’m not taking anything away from the US and they won the award based on the criteria that was there.”
There was further speculation across cyberspace that America was awarded the trophy because of a complex point system metric that includes points for every swimmer to finish 1-16 in individual events and 1-8 in relay events.
However, with Advance Australia Fair being belted out almost twice as many times as the Star Spangled Banner, there are few who agree with the decision.
Chalmers said it perfectly after Australia’s win in the 4x100m mixed freestyle relay win on Saturday night.
“It’s always satisfying. I think there’s nothing better than standing on top of the podium and at times not having to listen to the American anthem and listening to our own anthem,” he said.
“It makes you proud when you see the Australian flag come up and you’re standing with your teammates.”
American TV broadcasters, however, ignored the sentiment and switched from the traditional gold medal rankings to total medals won when Australia surged ahead mid-way through the meet.
FINA had a curveball of its own in listing the medal tally across the entire World Aquatics Championships event with China coming out on top with 20 gold medals because of its success in diving events.
American swimming commentator Kyle Sockwell said on Twitter the swimming world went “haywire” when the trophy was handed out in such confusing circumstances.
He replied to one fan’s tweet about Australia’s performance by posting: “Absolutely astounding and I still think they “won” the meet, but the issue here is about not knowing how to score it fairly”.
He went on to say: “We don’t have truly transparent and logical scoring at the international level”.
Others seem to think it is pretty clear cut.
At least there was little controversy in the individual performance awards handed out.
French sensation Leon Marchand was awarded the best male swimmer, claiming three gold medals and breaking Michael Phelps’s long-standing 400m individual medley world record.
Aussie freak Kaylee McKeown was named best female swimmer after completing an unprecedented backstroke world title triple sweep.
Australia very nearly had a historic 14th gold with Shayna Jack finishing second to Sweden’s Sarah Sjoestroem in the 50m freestyle on Sunday night.
Jack’s performance was somewhat overshadowed by the American relay teams going back to back in the men’s and women’s 4x100m medley relays.
“We have a lot of pride in representing our country and it’s a great way to go out,” said men’s 4×100 medley relay member Ryan Murphy.
With the event being one of world swimming’s premier events and one year out from the 2024 Paris Olympics, it is hugely important as a gauge of where nations are at ahead of Olympic years.
This event shows Australia is on top as the team to beat.
— with AFP
