Swimmer left gutted after losing medal due to disqualification because of little-known rule
US swimmer Alex Walsh was demoted from her spot on the Olympic podium in Paris after officials disqualified her for breaking a rule which is little-known among sports fans.
The 23-year-old, from Nashville, Tennessee, was going for gold in the Women's 200m Individual Medley Final on Saturday (3 August) and ended up bagging bronze - but she ended up walking away completely empty handed.
She came behind Canadian star Summer McIntosh, 17, who bagged her third gold at this year's Olympics, as well as fellow Team USA swimmer Kate Douglass, who secured a silver medal.
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It appeared as though there were going to be two Yanks on the podium when Walsh finished third with a time of 2:07.06, however, officials ended up eliminating her from the competition entirely after reviewing video footage of the race.
It emerged that the US swimmer had committed an illegal turn at the halfway point, as she transitioned from backstroke to breaststroke - meaning that Australia's Kaylee McKeown ended up with the bronze instead after initially coming fourth.
In a strange twist of fate, McKeown knows exactly how Walsh will be feeling after having the glory snatched away - as she was disqualified from the semi-finals at the world championships last year for the same violation.
She said at the time: "I didn't see my turn last night but when I saw it this morning I thought it was completely unfair... s**t happens. We have footage and other angles that say otherwise to what the officials saw.
"You've got to go with what they're saying. That's the rules and I broke the rules, apparently. I can't do much about that."
Rules state that swimmers cannot rotate past 90 degrees onto the front of their body as they move from backstroke to breaststroke, which is what Walsh was caught doing halfway through the Women's 200m Individual Medley race.
The athlete, who looked gutted by the ruling, had came out on top during all the qualifiers in the event and has previously scooped a silver medal at the Tokyo Olympics in 2020.
Her teammate Douglass, 22, said of Walsh's disqualification: "I was just really heartbroken for her.
"I feel like she deserved to win that medal, and she deserved to be on the podium with me. And yeah, obviously when we swim that race together, it's fun to be on the podium together, so I was really upset for her.
"I feel like we have a fair share of mistakes and stuff and I don't know, it's just upsetting."
Walsh's sister Gretchen - who is also representing the US in the pool in Paris - told how she was in the middle of the warm down while watching her sibling's race when she found out about the disqualification.
"I was just stopped in the middle of the pool, like so upset," she said.
"I don't really know how to describe it, but yeah, I knew that I was gonna have to move on from that quickly in the moment and give her a big hug, tell her that I'm here for her and then go out and do this in her honour."
Gretchen then won a gold medal in the mixed 4x100m medley.
Olivia Burke