Swimming at the 1980 Moskva Summer Games:

The world record in this event was 3:42.22, set by the USA team that won the gold medal in Montréal. The United States had won this event at every Olympics at which it had been held, from 1960-76. The Australians won gold in Moscow, but their time of 3:45.70 did not approach the Olympic/world record. It was a new Commonwealth record. They were trailed by the Soviet Union, who had the lead going into the anchor leg, but Australia’s Neil Brooks overtook the 200 freestyle gold medalist Sergey Koplyakov with a 49.86 freestyle split. Great Britain won bronze in a national record time of 3:47.71.