An Olympic relay race ended in a dramatic finish, with a scorching performance by a local swimmer.

Zach Apple, a Trenton, Ohio native, anchored the 4x100 free relay and sealed the victory for the U.S.

“Still, the adrenaline rush from it, it’s crazy,” said the gold medalist’s father Doug Apple. “I don’t think it’s hit me yet that he’s a gold medalist.”

Doug Apple still lives in the Trenton home with a pool where his son began swimming.

It all started years ago when a neighbor, Ben Johnson, who was coaching a swim team needed another kid for a relay and called the Apple family to see if Zach Apple could do it.

Friends and family gathered Sunday night to watch the event live.

“The farther the race goes, we’re all standing up, everybody’s cheering and once he’s down there for the gold, it’s just craziness,” Doug Apple said.

In Trenton, there’s a large billboard congratulating the Olympian on making the team and there are signs painted in the windows of local storefronts updating the congratulations for the gold medal win.

Johnson is still cheering on his most successful swimmer and even had a recent picture taken of the two t0gether at the Olympic Trials.

Zach Apple isn’t finished racing in Tokyo yet. He still has the individual 100 free and the possibility of swimming on two relays.

TOKYO, Japan — A swimmer who fled Syria as a teen is among the 29 athletes competing on the Refugee Olympic Team (ROT) in Tokyo this summer.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) says 23-year-old Yusra Mardini escaped the Syrian capital of Damascus with her sister in August of 2015 and she now resides in Berlin, Germany.

Prior to the war in Syria, Mardini was a competitive swimmer who represented her country in international competitions.

“Me and my older sister decided because of war we weren’t safe. You went to school sometimes and there were bombings. In the pool there were also bombings," she told the IOC.

Since fleeing Syria, she has been training at the Wasserfreunde Spandau 04 club, which is a partner of the Elite Schools of Sport in Berlin.

Mardini was one of the first members of the ROT when it was created by the IOC before the 2016 Olympics in Rio as a symbol of hope for refugees worldwide.

In Tokyo, she competed in the women’s 100-meter butterfly race over the weekend. She finished third place in her heat, but she didn’t move forward because only the top 16 swimmers of 33 qualified for the semi-finals.

David J. Phillip/AP

Though she didn’t earn a medal, that wasn’t her only goal at the Olympics. The IOC says Mardini’s mission is to help others better understand the plight of refugees, that what they are ultimately seeking is safety and opportunity.

Mardini’s experience at the Olympics is a bit different than that of other athletes. Because she doesn’t compete for one country, she feels she represents the “whole wide world,” she told the IOC.

Along with her work in the pool, Mardini became the youngest person ever to be appointed as a goodwill ambassador of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in 2017.