Rio de Janeiro: The throne is vacant, should Mack Horton be ready to take his seat where the likes of John Konrads, Kieren Perkins and Grant Hackett have gone before.
On Saturday night in Rio, in one of the final races of a memorable Olympic swimming meet, Horton has the chance to join some of Australia's greatest names in what many still regard as Australia's event.
![China's Sun Yang competes during a men's 1500m freestyle heat in Rio on Friday morning.](/web/20160813232331im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/r/n/j/p/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gqrmt2.png/1471051457797.jpg)
Now, his arch-rival Sun Yang, the defending champion and world record holder, won't be there to stand in his way.
After a bitter dispute between the pair surfaced prior to the 400m freestyle, won by Horton in an epic dual, the rematch in the longer race was to be one of the features of a controversial week in Rio, where the spectre of doping clouded the results in the water.
![Strong chance: Australia's Mack Horton.](/web/20160813232331im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/o/c/o/e/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gqrmt2.png/1471051457797.jpg)
But Sun would fall ill between his 200m gold and the 1500m heats. The drums were beating in China that he was unwell and it proved to be on the money. Swimming in Horton's heat, he faded badly to finish last and miss the finals.
While a number of Australia's leading lights were unable to handle the pressure that surrounds the Olympic pool deck, Horton has taken everything in his stride, including the stoush with Sun that spiralled into an international incident.
He said it mattered little that Sun was missing from the final. Truth be told, those covering the race were likely to be more disappointed as the air suddenly went out of what has been one of the biggest stories of the Games thus far.
"Doesn't really matter," Horton said of Sun. "I'm just doing what I need to do. It doesn't matter if he's there or not. I'm doing my own thing.
![China's Sun Yang rests after bombing out in the men's 1500m freestyle heat on Friday.](/web/20160813232331im_/http://www.theage.com.au/content/dam/images/g/q/r/n/j/u/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gqrmt2.png/1471051457797.jpg)
"You're always looking to do as well as you can. I have a goal time and I'll just follow the process. I just tried to control it through and do what I had to do at the back end."
With Perkins and Hackett in the pool, Australia won this event at four consecutive Games from 1992 in Barcelona until 2004 in Athens. Now Horton has the best chance in two Games to win it back.
The 20-year-old qualified fourth-fastest for the final in a calm and controlled 14:48.47s swim on Friday morning. While Sun went backwards, Horton took another step towards a second appearance on the podium.
Italy's Gregorio Paltrinieri qualified fastest and has the world's best time this year, with his 14:34.04s substantially quicker than Horton's Australian trials time of 14:39.54s set in Adelaide in April.
Americans Conor Jaeger and Jordan Willimovsky were second and third into the final and Horton knows he must continue to improve to be a chance of hearing the anthem for a second time in Rio.
He has been a model of controlled aggression here in Brazil and has been largely oblivious to enormous drama that surrounded his accusation of Sun as a 'drug cheat'. He swims as one of the most despised men in China but couldn't care any less if he tried.
"I don't know. I wasn't really paying much attention. The Olympic Village is like a bubble," Horton said.
Unlike Sun, Horton remains friends with Paltrinieri, with whom he has trained in Melbourne. The pair have stayed in touch so the rivalry will about as friendly as it can get in an Olympic final.
But Horton comes in as the seasoned, in-form racer and has grown in confidence enormously here in Rio. His bold ploy to rattle Sun and strike a blow for his clean sport crusade paid off handsomely and he will be backing himself to repeat the golden dose in Saturday night's final.
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