WHEN your Olympic feats are so outstanding you elevate yourself into the company of Australian swimming legends Murray Rose, Ian Thorpe and Shane Gould, you are always going to carry the nation's flag at the closing ceremony. 
So it was that 20-year-old Stephanie Rice became Australia's golden girl of the pool at Beijing's Water Cube with three gold medals.
All three events - the 200m and 400m individual medley and the 4x200m freestyle relay - were won in world record times.
The all-smiling Rice captivated the nation with her winning ways, knocking over white-hot American favourite Katie Hoff in both her individual events.
Then teaming with a virtually unknown support cast of Linda Mackenzie, Bronte Barratt and Kylie Palmer in the relay, they smashed the world record by five seconds.
Rice joined Rose, Thorpe and Gould as triple gold medallists from a single Olympics, but shoulder surgery before London saw her preparation for the 2012 Games destroyed.Without a medal in that campaign Rice would retire by the time she was 25, content to bask in a trio of performances that will seldom be rivalled by an Australian swimmer.