Golden Dolphins: Australia’s record-breaking Glasgow campaign

Australia’s swim team closed out Glasgow 2026 with 76 medals in total, a haul that eclipses the previous record set in Gold Coast 2018 (28 gold, 21 silver, 24 bronze) and topples the tally from Birmingham 2022 (25 gold, 21 silver, 19 bronze).

The Dolphins finished with 37 gold, 16 silver and 23 bronze, a campaign that will be remembered as much for its depth as its headline moments.

Australia completed the set in the pool’s final races of the programme, the women’s 4x100m medley relay team of Iona Anderson, Sienna Toohey, Alex Perkins and Meg Harris touching in a Commonwealth Games record 3:54.25. Anderson led off in 58.83, Toohey held the field at the breaststroke turn in 1:06.75, Perkins surged to the front on butterfly in 56.30, and Harris brought it home in 52.37, the fastest freestyle leg of the field.

The men’s quartet brought it home strong. Henry Allan, Sam Williamson, Matthew Temple and Flynn Southam combining for another Games record 3:28.71. Allan’s 53.58 backstroke leg kept Australia in touch, Williamson’s 58.40 breaststroke split held the position, before Temple (50.18) and Southam (46.55) powered through on fly and free to complete the win. It capped a perfect relay campaign for the Dolphins, gold in all eight relay events, men’s and women’s, freestyle and medley.

Fittingly, the final night belonged to the man who’s been chasing history all week. Kyle Chalmers tied with Ben Armbruster in a Commonwealth Games record 22.73 in the men’s 50m butterfly, and with it claimed his 10th Commonwealth Games gold, enough to move him past Ian Thorpe as Australia’s most successful male swimmer at the Games.

Chalmers arrived in Glasgow with seven gold medals in total from Gold Coast 2018 and Birmingham 2022, chasing down Thorpe’s own record of 10 gold medals. Three Games and years of work, he finally got there. Chalmers walks away from Glasgow with 10 gold, 1 silver and 1 bronze medal. 

“It’s amazing, we are two country kids who are now celebrating on top of the Commonwealth,” Chalmers said after his tie with Armbruster.

Cam McEvoy rounded out the podium in bronze in 22.92, adding to a gold he’d already claimed in the 50m freestyle earlier in the meet.

Kai Taylor delivered another Australian gold minutes earlier, out from lane one in the men’s 200m freestyle and fought with every stroke to lead the race the entire way and touch in 1:45.22 the fourth gold of his own Glasgow campaign.

“If you’ve got a lane, you’ve got a chance,” Taylor said. “I managed to get myself into the final tonight after a bit of a slow swim this morning, but you’ve always got a chance when you’re in the race. I just went out there with no fear and got my hand on the wall first. I’m super stoked.”

Harrison Turner touched fourth in 1:45.93, with Sam Short fifth in 1:45.94.

Earlier in the session, Meg Harris capped a perfect Games with her sixth gold, leading an Australian sweep of the women’s 50m freestyle in 24.23 ahead of silver for Alex Perkins (24.53) and bronze for Shayna Jack (24.57). For Jack, the bronze closed out an emotional final chapter, the 27-year-old’s last individual race before retirement, and her fourth medal of the meet.

Lakeisha Patterson produced a stellar swim, winning the women’s 100m freestyle S9 in 1:02.99, with Emily Beecroft taking silver in 1:03.56 and Victoria Belando Nicholson fourth in 1:04.73. 

“It’s been a long time in the making, to go under the 1:03 mark is so exciting,” Patterson said.

“Massive credit to my coach for believing in me and not giving up.”

Brittany Castelluzzo added a fourth gold of her own in the women’s 200m butterfly (2:06.56), with Lizzy Dekkers taking bronze in 2:06.91, while Sam Short closed out the distance freestyle events with a golden treble in the men’s 1500m freestyle (14:42.11) adding to his haul from the 400m and 800m. Ben Goedemans followed home in bronze in 14:49.50, closing his own campaign with three medals for the meet and Matthew Galea touched in 15:00.69 for fourth place.

Elsewhere in the pool, Australia’s depth showed in the results just off the podium: Ella Ramsay fourth (2:24.89) and Tara Kinder sixth (2:26.95) in the women’s 200m breaststroke, and Henry Allan fifth in the men’s 100m backstroke in 53.51.

With the pool now closed and swimming complete, Australia’s Dolphins depart Glasgow having reset the bar for what a Commonwealth Games swim campaign can look like, 76 medals deep, and with Chalmers’ name now etched alongside Thorpe’s at the top of the record books.