SWIMMING: Australia has won its second medal for the Youth Olympic Games, winning bronze in the Mixed 4x100m freestyle relay on the first day of competition.

Kyle Chalmers, Ami Matsuo, Brianna Throssell and Nicholas Brown and in the heats Nic Groenewald, did Australia proud pushing home to bag the first medal at the pool of the Games.

“Finishing off with a medal, we can’t ask for more,” Sydneysider Matsuo said.

“I can’t really explain it, it’s something we dream of as swimmers every time we get in the water when it is cold and miserable outside and to have it actually around our necks is just unbelievable. Even though it is a bronze it just feels amazing,” Brown added.

After swimming the race of their lives, they were stinging and feeling the burn but all agreed that they would do it all again for each other.

“The hardest part was just I guess trying to control our nerves when in the marshalling area we were all trying to focus but we knew what we had to do, we’ve done this one hundred times so we just had to go out there and give it our best shot,” Matsuo said.

Despite being in China the team agreed they felt the love in the crowd with all the parents and friends cheering them on in the typical Aussie fashion.

“I think the family is stoked, I looked up into the crowd and they were going nuts,” South Australian Chalmers said.

“We feel like we are back at home with all the Australians back there and just cheering us on so it feels good,” Matsuo added.

The win caps off another successful bout in the mixed 4x100m freestyle relay, Australia winning silver at the Singapore Youth Games in 2010.

In other events, Groenewald broke his PB in the men’s 100m backstroke clocking a time of 55.99 and scoring the reserve spot for the final tomorrow night.

“I was pretty happy with getting under 56 [seconds], I was hoping to get into the final but at the end of the day I didn’t but I am still happy with how I went,” he said.

“Tomorrow I have 200 IM so hopefully I can make the final for that one which will be really good, so hopefully I can get myself back up for that.”

Ella Bond, Amy Forrester and Grayson Bell also missed out on qualifying for the finals but were all stoked with their performances all swimming faster than their heats in the morning session.

The Swimming will continue tomorrow at the Olympic Sports Centre Natatorium and will run through until Day 6, 22 August.

Laura Judd

olympics.com.au

@AUSOlympicTeam