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.