Australia's Cameron McEvoy admitted Friday he thought gold had eluded him after three previous Olympic campaigns, but tweaking his technique paid off big time in Paris.
The 30-year-old made his Olympic bow in London in 2012 as a heat relay swimmer before winning two bronze in Rio and another in Tokyo, again in the relays.
After Japan he thought his career was over and took a break to focus on other interests, but was enticed back to focus entirely on the 50m freestyle.
It paid dividends with his 21.25sec enough to pip Britain's Ben Proud for gold, with French veteran Florent Manaudou collecting bronze.
鈥業 mean, two years ago I didn't even think that I would have a lane here. I was not even thinking about swimming,鈥� he said.聽
鈥業 was just enjoying other sports and training just to have fun and learn. Within that two-year turnaround period a lot changed and it has been so nice.鈥�
McEvoy credited a change to his technique for turning his fortunes around.
鈥業t has been a very long road but an exciting one. It was a huge act of creation and a risk, doing a different approach, but obviously it paid off and it was an incredible journey,鈥� he said.
鈥業t was very strength and technical based. No more laps, total kilometres per week went from about 30 per week to 102, and it was more a finer technique and approach to the stroke.鈥�
Proud was a finalist at Tokyo 2020, finishing in a tie for fifth, and has featured on the podium at four world championships in this event, including gold in 2022.
鈥楾hree years ago is when I burst into tears. I couldn鈥檛 take the fact that I had kind of failed in my race, back in Tokyo,鈥� said Proud.
鈥楤ut that was probably the most fitting thing I went through because if I hadn't gone through that I wouldn't have experienced these past three years, which has had the highest of highs and lowest of lows.鈥�
For Manaudou it was the fourth straight Games in which he has earned a medal in the shortest of the freestyle events.
