By Gil LeBreton
glebreton@star-telegram.com
LONDON -- For a country with so many record-breaking swimmers and such a golden Olympic past, it had become the oddest of statistical anomalies.
The U.S. women hadn't won a swimming relay at the Olympics in eight years.
Granbury's Dana Vollmer even remembers that race, because she was on the 4x200-meter freestyle relay team that won the gold medal in 2004 in Athens.
She was just a kid back then. Now she's a 24-year-old married woman.
But the frustrating drought had continued. Were the U.S. women swimmers losing their edge in the pool?
Not a chance, they answered Wednesday night at the Olympic Aquatic Centre.
With Vollmer swimming the second leg and Michael Phelps' training buddy, Allison Schmitt, kicking it home, the U.S. team soared from behind to win the gold medal in the 4x200 freestyle relay, setting an Olympic record in the process.
Phelps' and Schmitt's coach, Bob Bowman, said it, in case you hadn't noticed it:
"We're having a great meet. The women are REALLY having a great meet."
With 10 events contested, the American women have already won nine medals -- four gold, three silver and two bronze.
The expected showdown with the Australian women has run dry.
As the Aussies' Bronte Barratt said after Wednesday's relay, "We were happy to win the silver medal. I was just glad to see us give them a run for their money."
The Australian team actually led through about half the race. Missy Franklin surrendered the lead to Camille Muffat of France late in her leadoff leg, and Vollmer dove into the water and quickly grabbed it back, only to be overtaken by the Aussies' Melanie Schlanger.
When Shannon Vreeland touched the wall to signal Schmitt's anchor leg, the United States was .54 behind.
Not nearly enough for Australia, Barratt said.
"We had to try to get as big a lead as possible, with Schmitty getting into the water," she said. "She's got two seconds on our fastest swimmer. We had a good lead, but Allison's just an amazing swimmer."
Schmitt overtook Alicia Coutts of Australia with a little more than 100 meters to go, and the only thing left to chase was the Olympic record, which they shattered in 7 minutes, 42.92 seconds.
For Vollmer it was her second gold medal of this Olympics.
"It was so incredible, just watching Allison kind of slowly inch away and knowing how amazing her back half is," Vollmer said.
"I've had so many amazing moments at this meet, and standing next to Missy, holding hands, standing up there on the medals podium, watching Allison's leg, was just awesome."
On a night when her famous training partner raced a routine semifinal in qualifying for the finals of the 200-meter individual medley, Schmitt continued to make a name for herself.
The relay medal was her fourth at these Games, after a gold medal in the 200 freestyle, a silver in the 400 free and a bronze in the 100 free.
The American breakout swim heroine of this Olympics was expected to be Franklin.
"It's actually helped her," Bowman said of Schmitt. "She didn't have the pressure and expectations.
"Now she can't play that game anymore."
The last time the U.S. women won the Olympics 400-meter freestyle relay was 2000 in Sydney.
That same Olympics saw them win the 400 medley relay for the last time.
But Wednesday night ended the drought, with a promise of more to come.
"We do a bunch of relay exchanges during training camp, just trying to get a feel for everyone and what they're doing," Franklin said. "It makes you confident in what you're doing."
The confidence has showed.
As Vollmer said, "The adrenalin rush during that race was just awesome. To know that I was on that relay, the last time that we won, is pretty crazy."
The only thing that seemed to slow Schmitt on Wednesday was when someone asked in the interview room about Michael Phelps, her teammate on Bowman's North Baltimore Aquatics Club.
"You're going to make me tear up," she warned. "I'm speechless. Being able to see him after the race, I jump and give him a hug every time. He makes me tear up every time I give him a hug.
"It's unbelievable to see how well he's doing here, especially coming back after such a fantastic Olympics four years ago. And now he's the most decorated Olympian. I couldn't be more happy to be his teammate and his friend."
Gil LeBreton, 817-390-7697Twitter: @gilebreton
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