Missing out on an Olympic medal by 0.01 seconds was unbelievable.
Winning Olympic gold by 0.04 seconds? Incredible.
“I didn’t know how to process it,” said Huske, a 21-year-old from Arlington, Va. “It’s just very overwhelming when you’ve been dreaming of this moment for so long.”
Huske edged U.S. teammate Gretchen Walsh, the world record holder, at the wall on a memorable night at the pool that was filled with pageantry, fireworks and joyful tears. With Leon Marchand swimming his first final of the Games, it felt as if all of France had crammed into the arena for the men’s 400 individual medley. The swim meet morphed into a boisterous, patriotic party when he won gold in 4:02.95, nearly six seconds better than Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsushita (4:08.62) and American Carson Foster (4:08.66), who took bronze.
There was no shortage of highlights: American swimmers bagged four medals as chief rival Australia failed to find the podium. Nic Fink, a 31-year-old engineer from New Jersey, won silver in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke; he tied Britain’s Adam Peaty, the two-time Olympic champion, in 59.05 seconds, just 0.02 behind Italy’s Nicolò Martinenghi.
The raucous crowd was still celebrating Marchand’s performance when Huske and Walsh stepped to the starting blocks. The fans were expecting a world record. They were not expecting Huske to steal the show.
Walsh, a 21-year-old University of Virginia star, had the slowest reaction time off the blocks, but it didn’t matter. One night after she set the Olympic record in the semifinals, Walsh burst out of the water and blasted across the pool. She was first at the turn, needing all of 25.40 seconds to cover the first 50 meters.
Huske was third, but Walsh was very much in control. It wasn’t until the final 10 or 15 meters that Huske appeared to be reeling in the world record holder. The margin shrank with each stroke, and when Huske touched the wall and saw the red light in her lane came on a nanosecond before the others, time seemed to stop entirely.
“I felt like I was hyperventilating a little bit maybe,” Huske said. “I felt like my body had a reaction. I couldn’t control anything that was going on it. It was all happening so fast.”
It was nothing like the Olympic race three years ago. In Tokyo, Huske was second at the turn but was passed in a mad dash to the wall, where the naked eye had no chance sorting out the winner. Huske finished fourth, 0.01 seconds off the podium.
She was disappointed to be so close. But also — she was so close.
“The goal didn’t change,” said Greg Meehan, her coach at Stanford. “… She was a hundredth off of a medal, but she was also only [0.14] off of a gold medal — her motivation never wanes. It was kind of easy to get right back into it.”
“I’m not going to lie — that was devastating,” Huske recalled Sunday night. “But I think that really fueled me. I think that did make me better.”
The struggles were also lessons. A year later at the world championships in Budapest, she broke through and won the 100 fly and claimed five other medals. But then she was slower at last year’s worlds in Fukuoka, Japan, finishing third in the 100 fly. She took a break from school to focus on Paris preparations.
The result: She arrived here a better athlete and a smarter swimmer, with a new perspective on what it takes to reach the wall first.
“I don’t know why, but I think I was a little bit naive last time going into it,” she said. “Like: ‘I’m on Team USA; Team USA always medals. I will get a medal. I will get my hand on that wall, and I will be on that podium.’ It’s a lot tougher than that.”
She worked with Meehan on race strategy and knew she needed to close stronger. An Olympic champion must put together a complete race.
On Sunday night, she had to chase down the best and covered the last 50 meters in 29.98 seconds, finishing with a gold medal-winning time of 55.59. Walsh, the heavy favorite after her otherworldly performances at the U.S. trials, covered the last half in 30.23 seconds, taking silver in 55.63.
“I was definitely nervous before,” Walsh said. “There was a lot of pressure on me, just getting the world record [last month], the Olympic record last night. And I just wanted to try to execute the race as best I could.”
Huske’s tear-filled reaction in the pool lit up the crowd and caught her teammates by surprise.
“Torri never, never gets emotional like that,” said Lilly King, a breaststroke star who was preparing for her semifinal. “So I was definitely trying to keep it together before my race.”
Walsh and Huske took in the celebration together. They were teammates on the 4×100-meter freestyle relay team that won silver Saturday. With new medals hanging around their necks, they stood side by side on the top platform as the national anthem played. Huske’s eyes welled up again before the twilight’s last gleaming.
Afterward, she shared an emotional moment with Meehan, then found her family and friends from Virginia, exchanging tear-filled hugs with her mother, Ying; her father, Jim; plus classmates from Yorktown High and family friends. They all made the trip to Paris, and they all knew the path to the podium was a long, winding story.
“It was a really hard road,” she said, “but I had an amazing support system.”