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The 2022 world champion touched out in 55.59 to
secure the U.S. team's first individual swimming gold of the
2024 Games, with Walsh taking silver in 55.63 after leading at
the turn on world record pace.
China's Zhang Yufei took the bronze.
The gold was just reward for Huske, who missed out on a
butterfly medal in the same event in Tokyo three years ago by a
mere 0.01 of a second, and she did it here with a storming
finish from third to first in the closing quarter.
"My first 50 felt really good, and then I've been working on my
second 50 a lot, especially after last year I had kind of a weak
finish, and I kind of died in my race, and like last Olympics
also, I like lost it all in the last 50," she said.
"So I really wanted to have a good, strong last 50."
Huske's win continued a sequence of the event never having had a
repeat winner since it was first held in 1956. Canada's reigning
champion Maggie Mac Neil finished fifth.
Walsh had set an Olympic record of 55.38 in Saturday's
semi-final, a time that would have comfortably won gold on
Sunday had she repeated it.
She had set the world record at the U.S. trials in Indianapolis
last month.
"I think I was definitely nervous before. I feel like there was
a lot of pressure on me just having gone the world record and
the Olympic record last night," she said.
"I just wanted to try to execute the race as best as I could and
it was definitely a fight to the finish. And seeing the one-two
up there though was amazing. I'm so proud of Torri. I'm proud of
myself.
"I think that was what America needed and wanted and it was a
really special moment that we shared out there on the podium,"
said Walsh.
The pair stood on the top step of the podium together for the
anthem, with Zhang -- who had expressed concern on Saturday
about how her rivals saw her after a Chinese doping controversy
-- joining them afterwards.
(Additional reporting by Rohith Nair, Editing by Hugh Lawson) [© 2024 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.]
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