Chase Kalisz, Jay Litherland win Team USA’s first medals at Tokyo Olympics with gold and silver in 400 IM

Chase Kalisz and Jay Litherland finished 1-2 in one of swimming’s toughest events, the 400 IM.

Chase Kalisz absolutely crushed the men’s 400-meter individual medley Sunday morning (and Saturday night in the U.S.) at the Tokyo Olympics, winning Team USA’s overall first medal at the Games. And it was gold with a time of 4:09.42.

Not only that, fellow American Jay Litherland surged in the final leg of the brutal, four-stroke event to take silver (4:10.28), while Australia’s Brendon Smith took the bronze medal (4:10.38).

Kalisz — who won the silver medal in the event at the 2016 Rio Olympics — had a strong performance in the opening heats and was seeded third entering the final. But his gold medal-winning swim was even better.

The 27-year-old swimmer had a solid and controlled first half of the event through the 100 butterfly and 100 backstroke legs, before coming home strong with a 100 breaststroke and 100 freestyle. The breaststroke leg is Kalisz’s strongest in the event, and it was phenomenal as his long stroke helped him surge to the front of the field. And he was able to hold on to win the first swimming final of the Games.

Perhaps the toughest swimming event in the pool, Kalisz said he’s learned “to embrace the pain the 400 IM brings,” but also said he’s not sure how many more of these swims he has in him.

Entering the final, the top-8 swimmers were separated by less than a second. But noticeably missing from the 400 IM final was defending world champion Daiya Seto, who failed to make the final after he finished fifth in his heat with a time of 4:10.52. In April, Seto swam the fastest time in the world this year at 4:09.02 — which still stands after the 400 IM Olympic final — and he was considered a favorite to medal in the event, if not win it all.

But without Seto in the final, the door was open for the two American swimmers to medal and land on the top of the podium.

However, despite this awesome first final, none of the swimmers got close to breaking Michael Phelps’ world record of 4:03.84 from 2008. It’s Phelps’ last-standing individual world record.

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