At his fourth Olympics, Cameron McEvoy finally got it right. So did Ben Proud, at his third Games. And then there was Florent Manaudou, who made the 50m freestyle podium a record fourth time.

They were the three oldest men in the Paris final, McEvoy, gold at 30 in 21.26sec, Proud, silver at 29 in 21.30, and Manaudou, bronze at 33 in 21.56.

Australia had never had a gold in the dash, Britain had never had a medal of any colour. And in all that history, in all of that history, no sprinter tops the record set today by Manaudou: gold in 2012, silver in 2016 and 2021 - and now, as an outside smoker in lane 1, bronze to complete the set.

And he did so in front of the French President Emmanuel Macron, who'd come to see how Manaudou would fire for France on a night where Léon Marchand rocketed to god-like status in the pantheon of French sports with a fourth gold in six days at the Paris La Defence Arena.

They'd walked out to a rousing reception, courtesy of Manaudou being one of the first to appear from behind the curtain, having drawn lane 1. By the time all men were present, the 2012 champion was clapping his hands above his head in an appeal to the crowd to give it some love.

Cue surround-sound bellowing. It was like a master switch had been flicked. Energised, they rose to their blocks. It felt like someone had opened the window for the noise to leave like a bat out of hell. No-one dared drop a pin.

McEvoy would later say:

"Before the race, it was insane. Flo (Manaudou) was clapping, getting the crowd going ballistic, which was awesome. I've never experienced anything like that. And also, like took the first stroke and the crowd was effectively the same noise level as like when I was on the block. So yeah, I've never experienced anything like that."

Boom! Just over 20 seconds to lifetime impact. McEvoy's reaction, 0.56sec, confirmed he was up for the win (the scientist had tested it and found that in races where he reacted inside 0.6, game on). Proud was with him every flowing, whirling, winding, grinding stroke of the way.

With a nailed finish to go, it was clear that the middle lanes had it. But who? McEvoy by 0.04sec over Proud, the podium pride completed by the outside smoker, Manaudou.

The partisan Paris throng in song, a celebration of fist pumping, lane jumping and chucking water about included an embrace between long-term training partners Proud and Manaudou under the guidance of British Olympian turned coach James Gibson, the Frenchman since his youth on the way to London 2012.

Fourth at Rio 2016 and fifth in Tokyo three years ago when the result almost caused him to quit the sport, Proud now has the Olympic medal missing from his collection of World, European and Commonwealth titles.

Canadian Josh Liendo was just 0.02sec shy of the medals, in 21.58, 0.01sec ahead of Greece's Kristian Gkolomeev, defending champion, Caeleb Dressel, of the USA, sixth in 21.61.

Each man had much to say in the mixed zone and then in their press conference. Some of that is now below the gallery - we'll bring you the full thing as soon as possible in the next couple of hours.