Brazil now play Colombia in the quarter-finals on Saturday. The dreaded “wall” had been reached.
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Chalmers, the son of former Australian Rules player Brett, had until recently harboured a dream of following his father into the indigenous football code, but was forced to choose between the sports previous year when injuries piled up. That part of the race is his office, his playground.
“That’s all I can say about myself and I guess the rest of Australia can get excited over a young 18-year-old at the start of his career”, McEvoy told FoxSports.
Chalmers is the first Australian to win the blue riband 100 Free at the Olympics since Michale Wenden in 1968.
Condorelli faded to fourth as McEvoy could manage only seventh. Naturally perplexed yet fearless in defeat, he will try to reset for the 50m event.
In glorious hindsight, it shouldn’t have arrived as such a shock.
Australian teenager Kyle Chalmers touched Dressel out by 0.01 second for the fastest time of the morning.
“I think it’s that I had that mental belief I could do that”.
Just a week before he was due to fly to Rio, Chalmers returned to Port Adelaide as part of his role. “Everything has fallen into place and I’m very grateful the way everything has worked out”.
Chalmers broke his first national age record in 2012, in the 13-and-under 100m freestyle. He stumbled into swimming only when he made a decision to participate in a school swimming carnival “for fun”.
“I spoke to some of the other boys and they said he was having a bit of a kick, so he’s still got the dream”, his father Brett laughed after the race.
And, get this, it’s an Australian.
“His world has changed from now on”, Australian swimming’s head coach Jacco Verhaeren said on Thursday. Some might even argue Chalmers wasn’t one of them. “He gave me some advice leading into the event, telling me to just take in every second of tonight and enjoy the moment, so that’s definitely what I did”. I’m not someone who follows swimming too much.
The lofty comparisons won’t stop at Thorpe. Gold for Australia. It’s all that swimming away from sharks in Lincoln, ‘ another said, apparently in reference to South Australia’s sharky waters. You have to wonder: who was Chalmers rooting for?
“There’s some mixed emotions, racing against one of my great mates Cameron McEvoy”.
It came on a night of surprises at Rio 2016 as 200m breaststroker Dmitry Balandin earned Kazakhstan’s first ever swimming medal with gold.
“When he turned seventh I thought he’d probably missed a chance at least of finishing in the top three or four”, Mr Chalmers said.
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Chalmers was relaxed before the race.
