In 2000, the men’s 4 x 100 freestyle relay was won by the Australian team, who beat the Americans by just 0.17 s and set a new world record. It sparked wild celebrations amongst the crowd, and evoked an uncharacteristic celebration from the team, who went as far as playing air guitar to mock the Americans’ pre-race claim that they would “smash the Australians like guitars.”

In the history of the event, the United States had never lost the relay at Olympic level.