Team USA wins men's 4x100 freestyle relay for first gold of Paris Olympics

Editor's note: Follow the latest Olympics live results, medal count and updates for Saturday, July 27.

NANTERRE, France — Team USA’s men’s 4x100-meter freestyle relay team had some notable work to do to medal in Saturday night’s final after qualifying fourth earlier in the day. Tweaking the lineup between prelims and finals sessions at París La Défense Arena, the Americans put on a show in the fastest relay in the pool on their way to gold – the USA's first of the 2024 Paris Olympics .

The team of Jack Alexy, Chris Guiliano, Hunter Armstrong and Caeleb Dressel posted a blistering 3:09.28 time to win USA Swimming's first gold of the Paris Olympics but fell short of world record expectations. Australia took silver (1.07 behind) and Italy bronze.

It was the Americans' third swimming medal of the night, following Katie Ledecky's bronze in the 400 freestyle and a silver in the women's 4x100 freestyle relay .

The 3:08.24 world record — belonging to Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, Cullen Jones and Jason Lezak — from the 2008 Beijing Olympics remained intact, despite Phelps, Jones and Lezak all predicting it would finally fall 16 years later in Paris.

The prelims lineup of Ryan Held, Matt King, Armstrong and Dressel swam a 3:12.61 race, qualifying behind China, Australia and Great Britain.

Shifting between second and fourth in the first half of the prelim race, Armstong brought the Americans into first with his standout third leg and a 47.50 split — the lone swimmer of the four to break the 48-second mark. Dressel looked sluggish and faded toward the end of his anchor leg, as Australian star Kyle Chalmers surged to first in the heat with .75-second faster 100 than the American three-time Olympian.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Team USA wins men's 4x100 freestyle relay for first gold of Paris Olympics