Torri Huske is surprise winner of 100 butterfly at Paris Olympics

On Jul 29, 2024

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NANTERRE, France — The story of 100 meters can’t really be explained in 55.59 seconds. Certainly not in 0.04 seconds, and definitely not in 0.01 seconds. Three years? Maybe. A lifetime? We’re getting closer.

So forgive Torri Huske for poking her head out of the water and looking a little stunned when she spotted the scoreboard on the opposite side of Paris La Défense Arena on Sunday night. It was a lot to take in. Just three years after she missed the podium by a hair, Huske’s name was atop all the others, making her the surprise Olympic champion in the women’s 100-meter butterfly. She leaned against the pool wall, mouth agape, eyes welling. “Just very surreal,” she would say later.

Missing out on an Olympic medal by 0.01 seconds was unbelievable.

Winning Olympic gold by 0.04 seconds? Incredible.

“I didn’t know how to process it,” said Huske, a 21-year-old from Arlington, Va. “It’s just very overwhelming when you’ve been dreaming of this moment for so long.”

Huske edged U.S. teammate Gretchen Walsh, the world record holder, at the wall on a memorable night at the pool that was filled with pageantry, fireworks and joyful tears. With Leon Marchand swimming his first final of the Games, it felt as if all of France had crammed into the arena for the men’s 400 individual medley. The swim meet morphed into a boisterous, patriotic party when he won gold in 4:02.95, nearly six seconds better than Japan’s Tomoyuki Matsushita (4:08.62) and American Carson Foster (4:08.66), who took bronze.

There was no shortage of highlights: American swimmers bagged four medals as chief rival Australia failed to find the podium. Nic Fink, a 31-year-old engineer from New Jersey, won silver in the men’s 100-meter breaststroke; he tied Britain’s Adam Peaty, the two-time Olympic champion, in 59.05 seconds, just 0.02 behind Italy’s Nicolò Martinenghi.

The raucous crowd was still celebrating Marchand’s performance when Huske and Walsh stepped to the starting blocks. The fans were expecting a world record. They were not expecting Huske to steal the show.

Walsh, a 21-year-old University of Virginia star, had the slowest reaction time off the blocks, but it didn’t matter. One night after she set the Olympic record in the semifinals, Walsh burst out of the water and blasted across the pool. She was first at the turn, needing all of 25.40 seconds to cover the first 50 meters.

Huske was third, but Walsh was very much in control. It wasn’t until the final 10 or 15 meters that Huske appeared to be reeling in the world record holder. The margin shrank with each stroke, and when Huske touched the wall and saw the red light in her lane came on a nanosecond before the others, time seemed to stop entirely.

“I felt like I was hyperventilating a little bit maybe,” Huske said. “I felt like my body had a reaction. I couldn’t control anything that was going on it. It was all happening so fast.”

It was nothing like the Olympic race three years ago. In Tokyo, Huske was second at the turn but was passed in a mad dash to the wall, where the naked eye had no chance sorting out the winner. Huske finished fourth, 0.01 seconds off the podium.

She was…