Evans Collects First WA Medal in London
Western Australian Institute of Sport athlete Blair Evans has become WA’s first Olympic medallist from London, after her heat swim in the women’s 4x200m set up the Australian team for silver in the final overnight.
The Australian team of Bronte Barratt, Melanie Schlanger, Kylie Palmer and Alicia Coutts have put up a brave fight in the battle to defend their Olympic 4x200m freestyle relay title before going down to a white hot USA team.
Four years ago Barratt, Palmer, Stephanie Rice and the now retired Linda MacKenzie combined for the win and one of Australia’s most memorable moments in Beijing.
As they had in Beijing, the Aussies came into the final with a totally new team to the one of Brittany Elmslie, Angie Bainbridge, Jade Neilson and Blair Evans that helped them into the final as the fastest qualifiers. The selection of Coutts was seen by some as a gamble, but in reality she is the form Australian swimmer of the meet and was never going to let anyone down.
Barratt (1:55.76) got the team off to a brilliant start and handed over to Schlanger in second place, only for Schlanger (1:55. 62) to hit the wall in first, 0.6 ahead of the USA, with a stunning second leg. Palmer then maintained the lead, logging a 1:56.91, and when Coutts hit the water she held just over half a second advantage over USA.
But from then on it wasn’t really a fair fight – Coutts was swimming an event that probably isn’t in her top three, and the Americans were being anchored by the new Olympic champion in the individual 200m, Allison Schmitt.
In the end the USA clocked 7:42.92 to Australia’s 7:44.41. France was a distant third in 7:47.49.
The medal was Coutts’ fourth of the meet and she is now in line to match Ian Thorpe (Sydney in 2000) and Shane Gould (Munich in 1972) as the only Australians to win five medals at a single Olympic Games when she lines up in the 4x100m medley relay on the last night of the meet.
Schlanger, the team’s oldest swimmer at 25, said her side did the best they could.
“On paper they were much faster than us but we gave them a really good race and a silver medal is amazing,” Schlanger said.
Coutts said she didn’t find out she was even swimming the race until nine hours before she hit the pool.
“I had no idea I was doing the relay and hadn’t planned for it. I got a call about noon. I was having a massage,” she said.
“I was pretty nervous because I don’t do too many 200m freestyle’s but I just wanted to do the best I could and hopefully make the girls and everyone else proud.”