U.S. Suddenly Leads Medal Table After Day Six, According To NBC

2023 WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

When watching the domestic broadcast of day six of the 2023 World Championships one might have thought the United States had one heck of a day, suddenly appearing atop the overall medal table.

NBC’s coverage decided to change up its graphic and sort the medals tonight by total number instead of the traditional ranking by number of golds. That put the stars n’ stripes ahead of both Australia and China, even though those respective nations carry more gold, especially on the Australian side.

We reviewed the potential of the United States to catch Australia’s golden haul here.

Today, NBC and USA Swimming officially waived the white flag at the end of finals by changing their medals table graphic to a total medals sort. #fukuoka2023 pic.twitter.com/fkuUcSVgSw — Braden Keith (@Braden_Keith) July 28, 2023

Tonight, Aussie Mollie O’Callaghan made history by becoming the first woman to top both the women’s 100m and 200m freestyle podiums. Teammate Zac Stubblety-Cook also claimed some hardware, securing silver in the 200m breast while the men’s 4x200m free relay bagged bronze.

As for China, 24-year-old Qin Haiyang made history of his own, becoming the first swimmer to ever have swept all three distances of a discipline at a single World Championsihps. Qin ripped a new World Record of 2:05.48 to win the men’s 200m breast.

The United States saw Ryan Murphy snag 200m back silver while Kate Douglass achieved the same result in the women’s 200m breaststroke event.