France Win Gold In 4x100m Freestyle Relay Final | London 2012 Olympics

In an extremely close finish to the 4x100m men’s freestyle France comeback to take the gold medal just ahead of USA and Russia. The event took place at the London aquatics centre, 24 July and saw American Michael Phelps claim one of his 22 Olympic medals. Subscribe to the Olympics here & hit the bell! 🔔 Swimming has featured on the programme of all editions of the Games since 1896. The very first Olympic events were freestyle (crawl) or breaststroke. Backstroke was added in 1904. In the 1940s, breaststrokers discovered that they could go faster by bringing both arms forward over their heads. This practice was immediately forbidden in breaststroke, but gave birth to butterfly, whose first official appearance was at the 1956 Games in Melbourne. This style is now one of the four strokes used in competition. Women’s swimming became Olympic in 1912 at the Stockholm Games. Since then, it has been part of every edition of the Games. T