The Paris La Defense Arena just registered a spectacular sight! 2-time Olympian Torri Huske bagged gold in the women’s 100m butterfly finals. All eyes were on lane 5, where Huske clocked a 55.59 to bag her first Olympic gold! As she did that, Gretchen Walsh, a fellow American, Olympic debutant, and world record holder in the category, bagged the silver spot with 55.63.

For Huske, it was an emotional win. After she shed tears in the pool and hugged Walsh in the water, she briefly opened up about how overwhelming the emotion was for her. Huske stated, “I feel like I’m in shock right now. I don’t even know how to talk. I feel like I need to cry, but I am also smiling. It’s really surreal. Like you said, I just missed the podium last time by a hundredth. So I am thankful to be here. And to do it with Gretchen, it’s just amazing. I’ve had a long road. But I have a lot of support and I am so thankful for all of it.”

In 2020, in Tokyo, where Huske made her Olympic debut as an 18-year-old, she missed the bronze spot in the women’s 100m fly to her Australian counterpart, Emma Mckeon. And the difference was a gut-wrenching margin! It was just 0.01 seconds that shattered Huske’s dreams. Her 55.73 fell short by a hundredth of McKeon’s 55.72, and thus, she had to wait four long years for redemption. But this time, it seems like the American phenom is in stellar form.

The Stanford star opened her Paris Olympics medal tally last night in the 4×100 freestyle relay, bagging a silver alongside Walsh, Simone Manuel, and Kate Douglass. And now, she notches the enthusiasm further up with a glistening gold! Certainly, these back-to-back medals in two days will fire her up, as she enters her third event in Paris tomorrow. Huske will vie in the women’s 100m freestyle category, starting in heat 4, aiming to make another podium finish.

Torri Huske’s return to the winning ranks as a swimming dynamo

The 2023 US Nationals served as a teaser of how Huske can rope herself back into the winning league. Initially trailing behind Walsh in the 100m butterfly finals, Huske made a strong comeback in the 50m final. A similar jumpback was witnessed in the La Defense Arena today! Huske snatched the gold spot in the ultimate 10m swimming, as she pushed ahead with all her might. And just like this chapter in 2023, when Walsh made do with a silver rank, as she had no answer to Huske’s commendable 56.18 timing, so did she today!

Her lodestar in this journey, Huske’s coach Greg Meehan, has played a significant part in her ascent post-Tokyo. “She’s got a little more prep to it,” he said, certain of her potential to overshadow her contemporaries. Indeed, she proved that to the world today! Nonetheless, right from the start of the year, she looked charged up for the Paris battle. The 2024 TYR Pro Swim Series was when she broke an 8-year-long record in the 100m fly. As the clock stopped at 56.13, Torri Huske entered her name in the pages of history. She had splashed her way to the fastest in the event and in the series’ history.

“I feel really good about where I am right now…I think that I’m on a good path right now,” she had affirmed in March. And by July, she had risen to the highest podium, proving just that. What do you think of Torri Huske’s victorious comeback?