In the final swimming race at these Games, the U.S. continued their unbeaten streak in the event to take gold in a world record time of 3:26.78, eclipsing the former super-suited mark by half a second. Though a shade off his bronze medal-winning time in the individual 100 m backstroke,
Ryan Murphy (52.31) nonetheless got the U.S. out to an early lead of 0.21 seconds. While
Michael Andrew's breaststroke split of 58.49 led the U.S. to fall back in third,
Caeleb Dressel unleashed the fastest butterfly split of all time in 49.03 to regain the lead. Diving in with a margin of 6-tenths of a second over the field,
Zach Apple anchored the U.S. home to gold in 46.95 for their eleventh swimming gold of the Games. 100 m breaststroke world record holder
Adam Peaty threw down the fastest breaststroke split ever in 56.53 to give the British team of
Luke Greenbank (53.63),
James Guy (50.27), and
Duncan Scott (47.08) a brief lead of 0.6 seconds on the second leg. Though the U.S. edged them out to the front in the following leg, Great Britain touched in a European record of 3:27.51 - the third fastest performance in history - to defend their silver medal from five years earlier in Rio. Meanwhile, Italy's well-rounded foursome of
Thomas Ceccon (52.52),
Nicolò Martinenghi (58.11),
Federico Burdisso (51.07) and
Alessandro Miressi (47.47) posted a national record of 3:29.17 to secure Italy's first podium finish in the event. Despite a strong back-half - with
Andrey Minakov (50.31) and
Kliment Kolesnikov (47.03) recording the third-fastest butterfly and freestyle splits in the field - ROC could not close the gap on the Italians to miss the podium by 5-hundredths of a second. Australia, the defending bronze medallists, could not repeat their podium finish, falling to fifth in 3:29.60. Japan took sixth in 3:29.91, breaking China's 2018 Asian record by 0.08 s, while Canada (3:32.42) finished in a distant seventh. China was disqualified from the race owing to an early relay takeover by freestyler
He Junyi. ==Records==