Cavaliers Now

Virginia Swimmers Win Three More Medals on Saturday at the Paris Olympics

Matt Newton

Kate Douglass was one of three Virginia swimmers who took home medals on Saturday at the 2024 Paris Olympics.
Kate Douglass was one of three Virginia swimmers who took home medals on Saturday at the 2024 Paris Olympics. / Virginia Athletics

University of Virginia swimmers earned three more medals on Saturday night at the 2024 Paris Olympics, as Kate Douglass took silver in the 200 IM, Paige Madden earned bronze in the 800 free, and Gretchen Walsh won gold as part of Team USA's world record-setting 4x100 mixed medley relay team.

Though it was a tremendous night for the Cavaliers, there was also a heartbreaking moment for one of UVA's Olympic swimmers.

In 2021, Alex Walsh and Kate Douglass finished second and third in the final of the women's 200-meter individual medley at the Tokyo Olympics. Three years later, the Virginia swimming duo nearly occupied two spots on the podium in the same event at the Paris Olympics, if not for a heartbreaking disqualification for a technical error.

Kate Douglass earned her third medal of the Paris Olympics and fourth-career Olympic medal by taking silver in the 200 IM and Alex Walsh was in line for bronze by finishing third in the final, but she was disqualified for illegally going "past vertical", or rotating onto her stomach prior to touching the wall, on her turn from the backstroke to the breaststroke.

It's a particularly brutal outcome for Walsh, as the 200 individual medley was her lone event of the Olympics and she appeared to have won her second-career Olympic medal in the event before the disqualification.

While Walsh missed out on a bronze medal, another Virginia swimmer managed to take home bronze on Saturday as Paige Madden placed third in the 800-meter freestyle to win her third-career medal and first individual Olympic medal. Before these Olympic Games, Madden had yet to finish in less than 8:20 in this event. She then clocked 8:18.48 in the prelims and then dropped more than five more seconds off of her time in the final, finishing in 8:13.00 to earn the bronze. Katie Ledecky won the gold in the 800 free for the fourth-straight Olympics, while Australia's Ariarne Titmus took silver.

Finally, first-time Olympian Gretchen Walsh won her third medal of the week and first-ever gold as part of Team USA's 4x100 mixed relay team that broke a world record with a time of 3:37.43 and needed every bit of it, barely beating China by just 12 one-hundredths of a second.

Virginia swimmers have won a total of eight medals at the 2024 Paris Olympics:

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

Gretchen Walsh has a chance for one more medal, as she advanced to Sunday's 50 free final.

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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.