American men underwhelm in pool at Paris Olympics. Women lead way as Team USA wins medal race.

NANTERRE, France — The U.S. men were down to their last chance, their final race, to avoid the ignominy of doing something in American swimming that hadn’t been done in 124 years: going oh-for-the-Olympics in men’s individual gold medals.

Then Bobby Finke saved the day. When the reigning Olympic gold medalist in the men’s 1,500 freestyle won it again in a world-record time Sunday evening on the final day of the Olympic swimming competition, the U.S. men saved face — a little.

Instead of zero individual golds, they finished with one. So, instead of having to go back to 1900, we only have to go back 68 years to find this kind of underwhelming individual performance by American male swimmers striving for the top of the medal podium.

The last time the American men won only one individual gold medal at an Olympics was 1956 in Melbourne, when there were only six men’s events in all. The time before that? The 1932 Los Angeles Olympics, when there were only five. Here at the 2024 Paris Olympics, there were 14 individual men’s races. 

After the dominance of Michael Phelps from 2004-2016, and Caeleb Dressel in 2021, this was a shock to the system. No star stepped up. They tried, of course, but it just didn’t happen. Silver replaced gold; bronze replaced silver. Fast times at the U.S. Olympic trials in June could not be matched. Not winning races became the norm.

“We want our athletes to win gold medals but the other teams have great athletes as well,” U.S. men’s coach Anthony Nesty said after the final race Sunday. “Hopefully we go back and all the coaches of the U.S. get back on it in August and hopefully four years from now we have a better result in L.A. (at the 2028 Olympics).” 

But there’s a plot twist in this less-than-inspiring story: the United States actually won the swimming gold medal count at these Olympics, by a sliver over Australia, 8-7. 

Who gets the credit for that? The U.S. women’s swimmers, who admirably won four individual gold medals and one relay gold. The U.S. men did win one relay gold, and that eighth gold came in Saturday night’s mixed medley relay. 

While the men had Finke, the women had Katie Ledecky, who swam into the history books with two more gold medals in her specialties, the 800 and 1,500 freestyle, to go with a relay silver and a bronze in the 400 free. And they had Torri Huske, the American breakout star of the meet, who won the 100 butterfly and anchored two gold-medal-winning, world-record-setting relay teams. She also won a silver in the 100 freestyle and a silver in another relay.

And they had Kate Douglass, who won the 200 breaststroke as well as gold in one relay and silver in the 200 individual medley and another relay. 

There was a depth among the U.S. women that didn’t exist with the men. The United States ran away with the overall swimming medal count, 28 total medals to 18 for Australia, but 18 of those U.S. medals belonged to the women, while only nine were won by the men, with the other coming in the mixed medley relay comprised of two men and two women. 

“Every time we step on deck, I still feel like we have the target on our back that we’re the team to beat and that probably won’t change, ever,” said Dressel, who didn’t win an individual medal here after winning three individual golds in Tokyo three years ago. (He did win two golds and a silver in the relays.)

“The goal when we come to the Olympics and the world championships is to win gold medals. There are other countries that are getting very dominant. … The wealth has just been spread around. I don’t think we’re getting any worse, per se. It’s good for the sport to have the whole world involved in it.”

But there was an unsettled feeling surrounding this U.S. men’s team. 

“Our goal is always to match our times or be better,” Nesty said. “But obviously they could have been better. You have to go back and look at your preparation coming into the meet and be better.”

All was not lost for Nesty. In addition to being the head coach of the U.S. men’s team at these Games, he also coaches someone else who swam here this week: Katie Ledecky.