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Kai Taylor

Wow!! The Aussie Dolphins Swim Team are flying high at the Paris La Defense Arena’s Olympic built swimming pool on night one with two gold & two silver medals as we are currently first on the swimming ladder with eight days to go.

Hats off to Ariarne Titmus on what has been a stunning swim for gold in the Women’s 400m Final, having kept herself ahead for this whole time – even if her competitors aren’t far away within her reach. Now Team USA’s Katie Ledecky might have not been a threat this time around but at least Arnie did enough to hold off 17-year-old Canadian sensation Summer McIntosh towards the end of the wall. There’s no better way to celebrate other than coach Dean Boxall’s signature moves/celebrations every time he sees their swimmers collect that gold medal as Arnie once again is the defending 2 x Olympic champion in that meet.

Not only that, our women’s relay swim team also done well in the 4 x 100m Freestyle Final consisting of Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, Emma McKeon and Meg Harris. Yes, they may have fired off slowly against the likes of China and Great Britain. However, the way Mollie O finished off her first stint has helped the Aussies take over the lead before the rest of her team stabilised it up front, which was enough to bring it home with another gold medal for the Aussies.

Wow!! Can you believe it Mollie O’Callaghan? She can finish it off from out of nowhere who is 100% established as the queen of freestyle sprints! Message sent Arnie with more to come between these two sometime next week. As said, she gave a great opportunity for her team-mates to get the job done and yet they’ve done it through the very end. Also, what a moment for Emma McKeon as well who is now the all-time Olympic gold medallist of 6 gold, 2 silver & 4 bronze for Australia!

And over in the men, another gold or two would’ve been great. However, we still have a long way to go before we can beat Team USA for the overall Olympics swimming honours like it was at the World Champs in Fukuoka, Japan last year.

Shoutout to Elijah Winnington who finished 2nd behind Germany’s Lukas Mertens the Men’s 400m Freestyle Final & so does the Men’s relay team quartet of Jack Cartwright, Flynn Southam, Kai Taylor & Kyle Chalmers in the 4 x 100m Freestyle Final. We wished they can get over these fast starts but at least the last two shifts by Taylor and Chalmers was enough to bring themselves home into silver behind the winners of this race Team USA.

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We had another spectacular night of competition for spots, near world record moments and breakthrough Olympic qualifications for those who punched their ticket to swim in Paris. Like Ariarne Titmus, Kaylee McKeown almost broke the new world record in the Women’s 100m backstroke even though she already won that race. Not only that Mollie O’Callaghan and 17-year-old Iona Anderson were right behind her when all three of them were on World Record radar at one stage but still it was a great race though to start night 2.

Then we saw a really great finish in the Women’s 100m breaststroke where Jenna Strauch just closed out 15-year-old Ella Ramsay by 0.04 secs at the end of the wall. Yes, experience is important right now but surely the future would be exciting; so Ramsay can look to first set national records here then internationally (both World Champs & Olympics) after that in the long run – watch this space.

Looking at the men now, they may be nowhere near the world record line but still produced some excellent competition along the way. That 100m backstroke last lap dash between Isaac Cooper and Brad Woodward was really good to watch while 20-year-old Max Giuliani came out of nowhere to upsurge Thomas Neill, Elijah Winnington and Kai Taylor in the 200m Freestyle. Looks like Tasmania has produced another top quality swimmer after Ariarne Titmus that is tipped for world heights & like Arnie, he too also moved to the Gold Coast to better his swimming and it’s so far, so good. Too early to say right now as you never know when looking for gold but he’s 100% off to Paris for the first time soon enough!!

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