NANTERRE, France — Less than an hour after American swimmer Alex Walsh was disqualified and lost a bronze medal, her younger sister, Gretchen, won gold and helped the U.S. team set a world record.
Talk about the highest of highs and lowest of lows on the Olympic stage for the tight-knit family from Nashville, Tennessee. Both sisters are stars for the powerful University of Virginia women’s swimming team and remain on the roster for 2024-25, Gretchen as a senior and Alex as a graduate student.
Alex Walsh finished third in the women’s 200-meter individual medley, in position for bronze, before a review canceled her result.
She was disqualified for not completing the backstroke leg of her race on her back and turning too soon in her transition to the breaststroke, according to World Aquatics. Alex walked through the mixed zone after her event at La Defense Arena on the second-to-last night of swimming without speaking to reporters.
Not long after, Gretchen was part of the U.S. 4×100 mixed relay. That team won gold and broke the world record in an event that debuted at the Tokyo Games three years ago.
She clasped hands with Torri Huske on her left and Nic Fink on her right and joined backstroke star Ryan Murphy on the same medal stand that Alex had missed out on earlier. Huske, who swims for Stanford, is from Yorktown High in Arlington, Virginia.
They finished in 3 minutes, 37.43 seconds, 0.12 ahead of China. That finish also went under review before becoming official. When it did, Murphy threw both arms into the air to celebrate.
Gretchen Walsh now has a gold to add to her two silvers in Paris.
The Walshes have accomplished so much together. Just this past spring, they led the Cavaliers to their fourth straight NCAA swimming and diving championship.
Two recent UVA alumnae also were major parts of Saturday’s Olympic swimming.
In the same 200 IM from which Alex Walsh was disqualified, former UVA star Kate Douglass won silver in 2:06.92, short of only 17-year-old Canadian Summer McIntosh, who posted an Olympic record of 2:06.56.
Alex Walsh was the 200 IM silver medalist three years ago in Tokyo at 2:07.06.
Paige Madden, the ACC Swimmer of the Year in 2020 and ’21, earned the bronze medal in the 800 freestyle with a personal-best 8:13.00. Katie Ledecky took yet another gold (8:11.04), with Australia’s Ariarne Titmus getting the silver (8:12.29).
In the mixed relay, Ryan Murphy, Nic Fink, Gretchen Walsh and Torri Huske held off China for a winning time of 3:37.43, breaking the mark of 3:37.58 set by Britain when it won gold in the wild and woolly event’s Olympic debut three years ago.
With each team picking two men and two women, the U.S. and China both went with their male swimmers in the first two legs.
Murphy put the U.S. in front on the backstroke, China’s Qin Haiyang slipped past Fink on the breaststroke, but Gretchen Walsh put the Americans back in front on the butterfly before Huske held off Yang Junxuan to secure the gold.
The Chinese team, which also included Xu Jiayu and Zhang Yufei, took silver in 3:37.55. The bronze went to Australia in 3:38.76.
Léon Marchand swam the breaststroke leg for France, but couldn’t add to his already impressive haul of four individual golds. The French finished fourth, more than two seconds behind the Aussies.
When the British won gold in 2021, the Americans finished fifth. Britain was seventh this time.
