Men’s Swimming at the 2000 Sydney Olympics Set The Tone For The 21st Century

Team USA has historically dominated Olympic swimming. Since the dawn of the Modern Games, U.S. swimmers have won 606 Olympic medals, 265 of them gold. That number is just under 22 percent of all gold medals won by U.S. athletes in both Summer and Winter Games.

But in the past quarter century, other nations have started to catch up. And it became evident at the Olympic Games Sydney 2000.

At those Games — 25 years ago this month — the U.S. men were challenged by Australia, the Netherlands, and Italy in the pool. Over the course of eight days, three Australian swimmers in particular — Ian Thorpe (known as the Thorpedo), Michael Klim and Grant Hackett — gave the U.S. men a run for their money.

In return, the U.S. swimmers showed power, resilience, and that swimmers in the 21st century would become Olympic stars. Of note, the Sydney Games marked the Olympic debut of a 15-year-old named Michael Phelps.

It all started the first night of Olympic competition in an event that the U.S. men had never lost.

Since it’s Olympic debut in 1964, the men’s 4x100-meter freestyle relay had been owned by the U.S. — a streak of seven Olympic gold medals (the event was not contested at the 1976 or 1980 Games). Swimming’s big names, like Don Schollander, Mark Spitz, Rowdy Gaines, and Matt Biondi, had powered the U.S. to gold over the years. Now it was up to guys like Gary Hall, Jr., and Anthony Ervin to keep the streak alive.

In the lead-up to the Sydney Games, Hall wrote an online diary for CNNSI.com — a merger between CNN and Sports Illustrated that closed in 2002. On August 22, 2000, Hall wrote:

“I like Australia, in truth. I like Australians. The country is beautiful, and the people are admirable. Good humor and genuine kindness seem predominant characteristics. My biased opinion says that we will smash them like guitars. Historically, the U.S. has always risen to the occasion. But the logic in that remote area of my brain says it won’t be so easy for the United States to dominate.”

The Australian press zeroed in on the phrase “smash them like guitars” and out of context, ran with it, unfairly vilifying Hall. And so did the Aussie swimmers. It set them up as underdogs.

“We like this position,” Klim said in an Unplugged podcast in 2021.

The press put “a target on our backs walking into that meet,” said Hall by phone recently. “Australia wanted to dethrone the champs, Team USA. They wanted to take us down on the world stage with that home court advantage.”

The men’s 4x100 free relay was the final event on the first night of Olympic competition in Sydney. Klim led off Team Australia, breaking the 100-meter freestyle world record and giving Australia a big lead. Fast as he was, Ervin touched the wall with the U.S. in second place, almost a quarter-of-a second behind.

Then Team USA’s Neil Walker and Jason Lezak reeled in the Australians, gaining back almost a half-second. Hall dove into the pool just a breath after Thorpe and “ran him down,” swimming his 100-meter leg faster than the Thorpedo. But Thorpe out-touched Hall for Australia’s first Olympic gold medal in the 400 freestyle relay. The Aussies had won it in world record time.

“That’s the loudest I’ve ever heard any sporting event, and I’ve been to Super Bowls, I’ve been to World Series,” said Hall. “The crowd in the Sydney Aquatic Centre that night was just out of control. It was memorable.”

It was the toughest loss of Hall’s career, but he was the first to congratulate the Australians.

 The U.S. also broke the 4x100 freestyle world record by over a second-and-a-half that night — far from the “failing” performance that the media made it out to be.

Four nights later, Hall dove into the pool to contest the men’s 100-meter freestyle, an event he had only swum three times prior. He wanted to come back from the relay performance. He also wanted to prove to the world — and himself — that his recent life-changing type 1 diabetes diagnosis was not going to slow him down.

While he did not win gold in the 100 free, Hall claimed the bronze medal, out-touching Klim by 0.01 of a second.

One of the first Olympic stars of the 21st century, Hall is the only swimmer to medal in every Olympic event he contested, and his bronze from the 100 freestyle at the 2000 Games is the medal of which he is most proud. It represents resilience.

As for his role in the spotlight, Hall is humble.

“I’m happy to be a brick in the very incredible wall that is USA Swimming,” he said. “I’m very proud that I was able to contribute and play a part, but I stood on the shoulders of giants before us.”

Australia earned another four Olympic gold medals in the pool — with the men led by Thorpe with the 400 freestyle win, Hacket taking the 1500 freestyle, and the Australian men winning the 4x200 free relay as well. But the U.S. had even more more shining moments in the Sydney International Aquatic Centre as well.

Michael Phelps, the youngest male swimmer to make an Olympic team in 68 years, qualified for the final of the men’s 200 butterfly and finished fifth. Six months later, he broke the 200 butterfly world record and won his first world championship title — the start of his long legacy.

Lenny Krayzelburg won both men’s backstroke races. He would become part of a 20-year U.S. backstroke streak, with American men winning every Olympic backstroke event from the 1996 to 2016 Games.

And the men kept their medley relay dominance alive in Sydney, claiming gold, setting a world record, and beating the Australians by over 1.5 seconds. Until the 2024 Games, the U.S. men had won every Olympic medley relay since the event’s debut in 1960 (excluding the Olympic Games Moscow 1980 when the U.S. did not send a team).

Swimming at the 2000 Sydney Games closed with Hall and Ervin tying for gold in the men’s 50-meter freestyle. The two were training partners in California and had spent countless hours in the pool swimming next to each other.

“You can’t script something like that,” said Hall. “It was a perfect scenario. There’s not a guy who I’d rather share the medal with.”

Hall still lives in California, where he is working on a sports betting platform for swimming that he hopes to launch in 2026. And in January 2025, he lost his home — and his Olympic medals — in the Palisades wildfire.

Thorpe was the third person to call him after the news broke (the first two calls were from Hall’s family). Klim and Hackett reached out to him as well.

“It's important that people realize that even though these rivalries are intense, and these are great champions and guys that you want to beat, they have remained friends,” said Hall, “and that's something that says a lot about sport — how we can exercise this competitive nature that's in all of us, but also do it in a respectful way.”

This summer, IOC presented Hall with replica medals.

“It’s hard for me to find the words,” he said on Instagram after receiving the replicas, “but it means a lot.”