Cavaliers Now

Three Virginia Swimmers Win Gold as Part of Team USA's 4x100 Medley Relay

Matt Newton

Gretchen Walsh, Kate Douglass, and Emma Weber each earned a gold medal as part of Team USA's women's 4x100 medley relay team as part of the Paris Olympics. | Virginia Athletics
Gretchen Walsh, Kate Douglass, and Emma Weber each earned a gold medal as part of Team USA's women's 4x100 medley relay team as part of the Paris Olympics. | Virginia Athletics / Virginia Athletics

On the final night of swimming competition at the 2024 Paris Olympics, three Virginia swimmers earned gold medals as part of Team USA's world record-breaking women's 4x100 medley relay team. Emma Weber swam the breaststroke leg and Kate Douglass swam the freestyle anchor leg in Saturday's prelim and then Gretchen Walsh tied the fastest butterfly split of all-time to help the Americans set a world record in the final and capture gold. All athletes who swim in either the prelims or the finals for the team also earn medals in that event.

It was the final event of the Olympic swim meet and for the Cavaliers, they saved the best for last.

Teaming up with Regan Smith (backstroke), Lilly King (breaststroke), and Torri Huske (anchor freestyle), Gretchen Walsh took home her second gold medal in as many days and fourth medal of her first Olympic Games. Walsh swam the butterfly leg in 55.03 seconds, tying Sweden's Sarah Sjostrom for the fastest 100 butterfly relay split ever recorded. It was the second day in a row that Walsh was part of a relay team that broke a world record, as she helped Team USA's 4x100 mixed medley relay team capture gold in world record fashion on Saturday.

Walsh barely missed out on another medal earlier in the day, as she finished fourth in the 50-meter freestyle with a time of 24.21 seconds, missing the podium by one one-hundredth of a second - Chinas's Zhang Yufei touched the wall at 24.20 seconds.

It was still a brilliant debut Olympics for Gretchen Walsh, who also won silver as part of the the women's 4x100 free relay team and earned her first individual medal as well, a silver in the the 100 butterfly, in addition to her two relay golds.

Virginia swimmers won six medals in just the last two days of the Olympic swimming competition, as before Walsh, Douglass, and Weber won gold on Sunday, Walsh won gold as part of the 4x100 mixed medley relay, Kate Douglass took silver in the 200-meter individual medley, and Paige Madden lowered her personal best by more than five seconds to earn bronze in the 800m freestyle on Saturday.

In total, Virginia swimmers claimed 11 medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics:

Kate Douglass: silver in 4x100 free relay, gold in 200 breast, silver in 200 IM, gold in 4x100 medley relay
Gretchen Walsh: silver in 4x100 free relay, silver in 100 butterfly, gold in 4x100 mixed medley relay, gold in 4x100 medley relay
Paige Madden: silver in 4x200 free relay, bronze in 800 free
Emma Weber: gold in 4x100 medley relay

Published
Matt Newton

MATT NEWTON

Matt launched Virginia Cavaliers On SI in August of 2021 and has since served as the site's publisher and managing editor, covering all 23 NCAA Division I sports teams at the University of Virginia. He is from Downingtown, Pennsylvania and graduated from UVA in May of 2021.