The latest additions means Australia finished the week with seven gold medals, eight silver and three bronze to be second on the swimming medal table behind the United States of America (eight gold, 13 silver, seven bronze), who had a show stopping final night with world records to Bobby Finke (14:30.67) in the 1500m and women’s medley relay (3:49.63).

In the men’s 4x100m Medley relay, the Australian team of Isaac Cooper, Josh Yong, Matt Temple and Kyle Chalmers finished sixth (3:31.86), with the race won by China (3:27.46) ahead of the USA (3:28.01) and France (3:28.38).

Meg (23.97) took some time to process the result at the end of the frantic 50m Freestyle dash from lane two. She was behind Swedish champion Sarah Sjostrom (23.71), who completed a magnificent sprint double after victory in the 100m Freestyle earlier in the week.

“It’s my first time under 24 seconds. It took me a while to find out and line up all the times,” Meg said. “I think it was shock… I was just sitting there for a second and had no idea what was going on. 

“I saw Shayna (Jack) across the other side of the pool smiling at me and that’s when it hit me. I got pretty emotional.”

Shayna was eighth in 24.39 and had tears of joy flowing after her final race at an Olympics she never thought she would reach after spending two years out of the sport after an anti-doping violation.

“It definitely does (feel like redemption). I got a bit emotional out there because it’s over. I worked so hard to be here, it is sad to be saying goodbye to it but I’ll reflect on it and I’m proud of how far I’ve come,” Shayna said.

The Australian medley squad of Kaylee McKeown, Jenna Strauch, Emma McKeon and Mollie O’Callaghan battled hard on every lap to touch the wall in 3:53.11 but were no match for the USA, who scorched the pool to win gold and set a new world record of 3:49.63.

Mollie passed three rivals on the final leg to swim them into the medals and the team celebrated Emma’s final race as a Dolphin by jumping into the pool in their team tracksuits following the medal presentation.

The Dolphins great ended her career with a medal tally of 14 across the Rio, Tokyo and Paris Games and said she had made friends and memories that would last a lifetime.

“The emotions haven’t sunk in. That jump in the pool that just topped the week for me, that was so much fun - it was Kaylee’s idea. Obviously to finish with a relay was great as well,” Emma said.

“It’s not something I really look at (her medal tally). You just strive for personal bests and I think it’s the whole journey I will remember for the rest of my life. It won’t be these medals, it will be all the people and all the lessons.”

Dolphins head coach Rohan Taylor said he was hugely proud of how his team rallied as a bout of COVID disrupted the meet for a number of Australians, including Zac Stubblety-Cook, who managed to rise above and win silver in the 200m Breaststroke.

“Like every other country we did have COVID come through. That was a challenge for us to navigate and work through,” Rohan said. “In saying that, we had athletes swim with COVID. Whatever happened, we just dealt with it.

“We took every opportunity to race and compete.”

Rohan said the noise at the Paris pool was ‘next level’ and some of the young Dolphins would take immense benefit from competing in such an intense atmosphere.

“This has just been another level. Every single day, when our Aussie athletes are with the French, it’s a great experience for them to go out on pool deck,” Rohan said.

“They put on a fantastic show.”

Phil Lutton