Rio Olympics 2016: Twitter rushes to congratulate the wrong Kyle Chalmers after Australian swimmer takes gold

Gold medalist: the Australian Kyle Chalmers
Al Bello/Getty Images
Hannah Al-Othman11 August 2016

A Scottish teenager has woken up to thousands of Twitter notifications congratulating him on an Olympic Gold medal - which was actually won by an Australian namesake swimmer.

The Olympian Kyle Chalmers took the medal in the men's 100-meters freestyle, becoming the first Australian to win the event since Mike Wenden in 1968, and earning him hero status back home.

Thousands of fans tweeted the 18-year-old swimmer congratulating him on his win, but rather than tagging him in their posts, they mentioned 19-year-old radio communications technician Kyle Chalmers, who uses the handle @Kyle_Chalmers.

Among those rushing to congratulate the Olympian on his success was South Australia opposition leader Steven Marshall - who later deleted his tweet.

The swimmer Kyle Chalmers does not appear to have a Twitter account.

The Scottish Mr Chalmers said he had been asleep, and only realised his namesake had scooped victory when he checked his Twitter mentions.

He posted: "So apparently I've just won a gold medal!!! Get in there! Great way to wake up! #wrongkyle #IDontSwimImTooFat."

He later added: "You go for a nap and wake up to 2,000 notifications saying you've won an Olympic gold medal, what more could u want?"

Mr Chalmers told Mashable Australia: "I will lap it all up while it goes on, I'm always up for a laugh ... so waking up to 2,000 notifications was a bit of a surprise but reading the tweets I shared a chuckle, so yeah it's all good here."

Ironically, Scottish Kyle Chalmers is also is Rio, where he is watching, rather than participating in, the Olympics.

He told the Advertiser he has received a flurry of tweets in the past, when his namesake qualified for the Games, but not on the same scale.

“It’s not the first time I have been bombarded with tweets, so it only took me a matter of minutes to realise what had happened after I had woke up from a nap,” he said.

“I received them when my namesake qualified for the Olympics - (but) not as many as I have now.”

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