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The men's 4×100 metre medley relay event at the 1980 Summer Olympics was held in Moscow, Soviet Union on 24 July 1980 in the Olympiski Sports Complex. A total of 13 teams participated in the event. These were split over two heats held in the morning of that day, and the eight fastest teams qualified for the finals held in the evening of the same day. The United States, the winner of all previous editions of this event, was boycotting the games in response to the Soviet war in Afghanistan. As a result, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, and Sweden were expected to win. Australia's ''Quietly Confident Quartet'', however, composed of backstroker Mark Kerry, breaststroker Peter Evans, butterflyer Mark Tonelli, and freestyler Neil Brooks, surprisingly won the final in 3:45.70. They were followed by the silver medalists Soviet Union, 0.22 seconds in arrears, and the bronze medalists Great Britain, as favorites Sweden had been disqualified in the heats. This was the only time a team other than United States won the gold medal in the event. ==Preview== The 1980 Summer Olympic Games were notable for a large number of boycotting countries as a result of the host country invading Afghanistan in 1979. As a result, several medal favorites for the men's 4 × 100 metre medley relay race were absent. The most notable absence was the United States, who had won the event every time since its inception at the 1960 Games, invariably by large margins,〔Fizkultura i Sport, p. 456〕 and would go on to win the event at all subsequent Games. Furthermore, they had also obtained the gold medal at the previous World Championships, just two years before the Olympiad. This, together with the boycott of the silver and bronze medallists from the previous edition, West Germany—who won the silver medal also at the World Championships—and Canada respectively, meant that the field had opened.〔 Sweden, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union were the most heavily favoured teams. Another ten National Olympic Committees were able to send teams to Moscow: Angola, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, East Germany, France, Hungary, Netherlands, Spain, and Vietnam. Favorites Soviet Union boasted the silver medalists in the 100 m finals hosted several days earlier in backstroke and breaststroke (Viktor Kuznetsov and Arsens Miskarovs respectively), while their butterflyer (Yevgeny Seredin) and freestyler (Sergey Kopliakov) had come fifth and fourth in their respective 100 m events. The British team included the 100 m breaststroke gold medallist (Duncan Goodhew), and fifth-place finisher in the 100 m backstroke (Gary Abraham). Sweden's butterflyer (Pär Arvidsson) and backstroker (Bengt Baron) had won their respective 100 m events, and their freestyle swimmer (Per Holmertz) had come second in the 100 m,〔Howell, p. 233.〕 while their lowest ranked swimmer, the breaststroker (Peter Berggren), had come ninth in the 100 m event. The Australians were regarded as an outside chance for a medal, but were not seen as the main threats, as they were ranked seventh coming into the Olympics out of the 13 competing countries.〔Forrest, p. 212.〕 In the five times the event had been contested, Australia had only won a silver in the inaugural race in Rome, and a bronze medal in Tokyo in 1964.〔Howell, p. 233.〕 On paper, Australia's team appeared much weaker than those of the other favorites: Peter Evans was the only individual medalist in the distance, claiming bronze in the 100 m breaststroke,〔Andrews, p. 148.〕 while Neil Brooks, the freestyler, and Mark Kerry, the backstroker, had been eliminated in their respective semifinals, and Mark Tonelli was swimming as a makeshift butterflyer.〔〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Swimming at the 1980 Summer Olympics – Men's 4 × 100 metre medley relay」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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