Olympic Swimming 2021: Men's 1,500M Freestyle Medal Winners, Times and Results

For 1,450 meters, Bobby Finke was just holding on to third place in the men's 1,500-meter freestyle final at the Olympic Games. 

The final 50 meters changed everything. Finke found an extra gear and pulled off an absurd 25.78 split on the last length, surging past Germany's Florian Wellbrock and Ukraine's Mykhailo Romanchuk to capture the gold medal in 14:39.65.

It's the second gold medal of the Games for Finke, who couldn't believe how fast he swam over the final length. 

Here's a look at the full results on Saturday:

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Men's 1,500M Freestyle Final Results

1. Bobby Finke, USA: 14:39.65

2. Mykhailo Romanchuk, Ukraine: 14:40.66

3. Florian Wellbrock, Germany: 14:40.91

4. Gregorio Paltrinieri, Italy: 14:45.01

5. Daniel Jervis, Great Britain: 14:55.48

6. Kirill Martynychev, Russian Olympic Committee: 14:55.85

7. Felix Auboeck, Austria: 15:03.47

8. Serhii Frolov, Ukraine: 15:04.26

Full results available via Olympics.com 

Wellbrock seemed to have a good handle on the race after the first 250 meters. After four lengths in second place, the German moved into first and held on to it for the next 1,200 meters.  

Yet he had to deal with Finke and Romanchuk matching him nearly stroke for stroke the entire way. Finally, on the last length, the two challengers wore the front-runner down. A final sprint proved Finke still had more than enough energy to blow past the two leaders and win the gold with relative ease. 

After winning the 800-meter freestyle on July 28, Finke has now solidified himself as not only one of the premier swimmers on the United States national team, but unquestionably one of the best long-distance swimmers in the world. 

There wasn't much else anyone in the pool could have done to prove otherwise.