Torri Huske missed a medal by a fraction of a second in Tokyo. On Sunday, she won gold : NPR

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NANTERRE, France — As Torri Huske touched the wall of the pool on Sunday evening within the Olympics ladies’s 100-meter butterfly race, she might see that she had received. However she did not but consider it.

“You possibly can type of see out of the nook of your eye, however you by no means actually know for certain,” she stated.

It was exhausting to argue with the truth that the sunshine on her block was the primary to activate — the official indication that she had received the race.

“Seeing that was very surreal,” Huske, 21, stated after the race. “You’ve got been dreaming about this second for thus lengthy, after which it lastly turns into a actuality. I do not even know easy methods to course of it.”

For Huske, Sunday’s gold medal end within the 100-meter butterfly was particularly rewarding and emotional after the ache of her fourth-place on the final Summer time Olympics in Tokyo.

In that race, in 2021, Huske led for a lot of it however pale as she closed in on the wall. In the end, she fell in need of the medal podium by the thinnest of margins: a single one-hundredth of a second.

“I am not going to lie, that was devastating,” Huske stated. “However I feel that actually fueled me, and it did make me higher.”

She had been “naive” going into the Olympics in 2021, she stated Sunday. Her success inside Crew USA had given her confidence that she would win a medal. “However it’s loads more durable than that,” she continued. “I do know now how exhausting it’s to medal, and I am simply actually grateful to be right here.”

Gold medalist Torri Huske and silver medalist Gretchen Walsh of the USA have fun after their 1-2 end within the ladies’s 100-meter butterfly remaining on the 2024 Olympic Video games in Paris.

Sarah Stier/Getty Photos

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Sarah Stier/Getty Photos

One other a part of the explanation Huske’s win got here as such a shock — even to Huske — was as a result of one other U.S. swimmer, Gretchen Walsh, had been the heavy favourite to win the occasion.

Expectations have been sky-high for Walsh, 21, on Sunday after she set the world report within the 100-meter butterfly final month within the U.S. Olympic Crew Trials — then adopted that with an Olympic report in her warmth right here at Paris’s La Protection Enviornment on Saturday.

However these stellar finishes turned what was as soon as a “enjoyable, no-pressure” occasion for Walsh into the other, the swimmer stated after the race. “There’s positively stress now, and that is only a actuality that I’ve to face,” Walsh stated. “I used to be fairly nervous going into tonight.”

Ultimately, Walsh completed the race in 55.63 seconds — .04 seconds behind Huske’s 55.59, and a quarter-second behind her personal warmth end of 55.38 the evening earlier than.

“That one harm, for certain,” Walsh stated. “I left all of it on the market within the pool. It won’t have been the time I used to be essentially searching for, however to even medal at my first Olympics is one thing that I do not suppose many individuals get to say.”

The bronze medal was awarded to Zhang Yufei, the star Chinese language swimmer who has change into embroiled in a doping scandal after revelations that she was amongst 23 Chinese language swimmers who examined constructive for a banned substance in early 2021. She went on to compete within the Tokyo Olympics, the place she received 4 medals.

With their Sunday medals, each Huske and Walsh have now change into the primary Individuals to win a number of medals on the Paris Olympic Video games. They each received a silver medal on Saturday once they participated collectively within the ladies’s 4×100-meter freestyle relay.

Reporting contributed by NPR’s Brian Mann in Nanterre, France.