Aussies set relay record, edge U.S.

By ELLIOTT DENMAN

Gannett News Service

ATHENS, Greece - Jenny Thompson was red hot, but Jodie Henry was absolutely sizzling.

And that was the bottom line on a great women's 4x100-meter freestyle relay final that brought down the curtain on the first day of Olympic swimming action.

Thompson, the most-medaled women's swimmer in Olympic history, dove in for her anchor assignment with a lead of exactly .37 seconds, perhaps half a body length.

But she emerged from the Olympic Aquatic Center pool with a frown of frustration.

She'd covered her 100 meters in a solid 53.77 but lost the lead to Australian ace Henry in the first 50 meters and never could close the gap.

The cheers of ``Oy, Oy, Oy, Aussie, Aussie, Aussie'' - heard so often at the 2000 Sydney Olympic Games - were heard again as soon as the final times were posted on the scoreboard.

Henry's 52.95 leg, following Alice Mills, Lisbeth Lenton and Petria Thomas, had powered her team to a world record clocking of three minutes, 35.94 seconds, erasing the 3:36.00 performance by Germany in 2002.

Thompson, preceded by Kara Lynn Joyce, Natalie Coughlin and Amanda Weir, was the fastest swimmer on the fastest team in U.S. history (3:36.39) - the previous American record was the 3:36.61 gold-medal team at the Sydney Games - but simply wasn't fast enough.

The second-place performance brought just her second Olympic silver. She'd been on the gold standard so long that it represented unfamiliar territory.

Along with her eight previous golds (all of them in relays) and a single bronze, Thompson's career Olympic medal count is now at 11, but she clearly was intent on another gold.

``It took a world record to beat us,'' philosophized the 31-year-old Thompson, who came out of retirement and took a leave of absence from her medical school studies at Columbia University to train for her fourth Olympic Games.

Thompson couldn't remember the last time she'd been passed on an anchor leg. But she had an answer for those who felt she shouldn't have anchored after placing fifth in the 100 freestyle final at the Olympic Trials.

``I definitely didn't have that spot handed to me,'' she said.

The relay capped a busy day for Thompson. She advanced to Sunday's final of the 100-meter butterfly with times of 58.77 in the morning round and 58.91 in the semifinals.

But the class of the race is the Netherlands' Inge DeBrujin. The world record-holder (56.61) and defending Olympic champion clocked a 58.47 in the prelims and a 57.50 in the semis.