Torri Huske gets sweet redemption after Tokyo heartbreak

Team USA's Torri Huske captured a gold medal in the 100m butterfly at the 2024 Paris Olympics on Sunday, three years after missing out on the podium by a 1/100th of a second.

At the Tokyo Games, Huske was poised for Olympic glory after taking a lead into the final 15 meters of the same event. A medal was within her grasp. However, she would stunningly fall to fourth place and miss out on the podium by an incredible margin of 0.01 seconds.

The heartbreak consumed her for the last three years, pushing her to right those wrongs in Paris. The 21-year-old also admitted she was not mentally equipped in Tokyo and needed a teachable moment.

"I'm not going to lie — that was devastating," Huske recalled of her Tokyo heartbreak, via The Washington Post . "But I think that really fueled me. I think that did make me better. I don't know why, but I think I was a little bit naive last time going into it. Like: 'I'm on Team USA; Team USA always medals. I will get a medal. I will get my hand on that wall, and I will be on that podium.' It's a lot tougher than that."

On Sunday, Huske found herself in a contrasting situation in the final 15 meters of the race, trailing teammate Gretchen Walsh and China's Zhang Yufei by a hair. However, when she touched the wall and made her final blitz, she gathered just enough momentum to edge out the pack and claim gold.

After Huske (55.59) finished ahead of Walsh (55.63) and Zhang (56.21), she broke down into tears, an emotional reaction that caught some of her teammates by surprise.

"Torri never, never gets emotional like that," said teammate Lilly King.

Torri's reaction was a reminder that the taste of victory is all the sweeter after the bitterness of defeat.

With Huske and Walsh finishing atop the podium, Team USA also went 1-2 in the women's 100m event for the first time since the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics.