As we count down the final days of the year, SI writers are reflecting on "The Best Thing I Saw in 2024" and looking back at the most memorable moments they witnessed in their reporting this year.
The aura around the United States men’s Olympic swim team on the final day of competition in Paris was grim. Disappointing results had piled up, night after night: Caeleb Dressel in tears after not making the eight-man final as the reigning gold medalist in the 100-meter butterfly; Ryan Murphy in shock after failing to qualify for the 200 backstroke final; younger American men missing podiums and missing finals.
By the final night, the most dominant swimming nation in history was staring at one last chance to sustain a 120-year streak. Bobby Finke had to win a gold medal in the 1,500-meter freestyle.
From 1904 onward, the U.S. men had won at least one individual swimming event at every Olympic Games. Usually many more than one. But an improving world—led by French-born and American-trained phenom Léon Marchand—caught up in Paris. Through 13 men’s events, the “Star Spangled Banner” never played in La Défense Arena.
Swimming websites were awash in doom-and-gloom commentary about the American performance. Critics were everywhere. Finke chose not to tune them out—he read the comments and soaked them in.
“I like reading that stuff,” he said. “It kind of motivates me inside.”
Properly motivated, Finke produced the gutsiest swim I’ve ever seen.
He walked onto the pool deck and stripped down to his racing suit behind Lane 7 as the sixth-fastest preliminaries qualifier. The 24-year-old Florida graduate won gold in this event and the 800 free in Tokyo in 2021, but was second to Ireland’s Daniel Wiffen earlier in Paris in the 800. Wiffen, in Lane 4, also was the top seed for the 1,500 and once again looked like he would be difficult to beat. Next to him in Lane 5 was the 2016 gold medalist, Italy’s Gregorio Paltrinieri.
With invisible pressure hovering over him, Finke completely counter-programmed his usual race strategy. He dove in and just went for it, surging to the lead in the longest race and hoping he could hold on.
Contrary to his somewhat bland persona, Finke is a guy who gained fame as a thrilling, come-from-behind specialist. Finke won both his Tokyo gold medals with stunning sprints in the final 50 to 100 meters, breaking away from tight fields. He was a dead closer.
And now here he was attempting to steal this race on the front end.
“That really was not my strategy going into the race,” he acknowledged. “I didn’t know how the race was going to play out. I kind of saw I had a pretty decent lead at the 300 so I knew I had to keep going and make the guys hurt a little bit. They started to catch up to me and I was getting a little worried, so I knew I had to keep pushing.”
Paltrinieri gave chase, gradually closing the gap. While Finke’s lead was getting smaller, his pace ahead of world-record time was getting larger. But time didn’t matter nearly as much as place—he was hunting gold.
“I can’t let go of this now,” he thought to himself. “I can’t be the guy who got run down after I do all the running down.”
He ran away instead, scorching the last 50 in trademark Finke fashion to break the 12-year-old world record of China’s Sun Yang. In the stands, Katie Ledecky was going wild cheering her close friend home. Ledecky is the greatest of all distance freestylers, men or women, her place in history unassailable. Now her training partner in withering workouts at Florida has a world record of his own, and a place in American swimming lore after extending an American gold-medal streak to 120 years.
This article was originally published on www.si.com as How Bobby Finke Salvaged a Disappointing Olympics for U.S. Men’s Swimming.
