DOHA – It took an epic anchor leg from Tyler Clary, but the foursome of Conor Dwyer, Ryan Lochte, Matt McLean and Clary managed to defend the men’s 800 free relay title at the FINA World Short Course Championships. Watch Race Video
There were faster splits throughout the race, but no one had a most dominant leg than Tyler Clary as he smoked the anchor leg for Team USA to defend the 800 free relay world title.
Team USA’s Conor Dwyer (1:43.20), Ryan Lochte (1:42.42), Matt McLean (1:43.20) and Tyler Clary (1:42.86) finished with a time of 6:51.68 to defend the 2012 title. The U.Ss joins Australia as the only nations to defend the title as the Aussies did it in 1995 and 1997.
The win gave Lochte his 21 gold medal, and a record gold medal in six straight world short course championships since first winning gold in 2004 in Indianapolis as part of this same relay.
Team USA had trailed Russia and South Africa heading into the anchor leg with all eyes on Vyacheslav Andrusenko and Leith Shankland after Chad le Clos’ brilliant 1:40.61 leg put South Africa into contention.
While Shankland looked to be tracking down Andrusenko out in lanes 6 and 7, Clary and Filippo Magnini (1:42.07) were turning on the jets in lane 5 and 4 to pull the U.S. and Italy ahead.
Italy’s Mitch D’Arrigo (1:42.77), Marco Belotti (1:43.98), Nicolangelo Di Fabio (1:42.98) and Magnini (1:42.07) wound up taking second in 6:51.80.
Russia’s Mikhail Polishchuk (1:43.62), Danila Izotov (1:50.65), Artem Lobuzov (1:42.87) and Andrusenko (1:44.82) took third in 6:51.96.
South Africa’s Myles Brown (1:43.25), Sebastien Rousseau (1:43.96), Le Clos (1:40.61) and Shankland (1:44.31) couldn’t make the podium with a fourth-place 6:52.13.
Belgium (6:52.66), Brazil (6:54.53), Germany (6:57.40) and Denmark (7:00.78) also competed in the epic finale.
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Scheduled Events
- Men’s 200 medley relay finals
- Women’s 100 free semis
- Men’s 400 IM finals
- Women’s 50 breast finals
- Men’s 100 back finals
- Women’s 50 fly semis
- Men’s 50 free semis
- Women’s 100 back finals
- Men’s 100 breast finals
- Women’s 100 IM semis
- Men’s 100 fly finals
- Women’s 800 free finals
- Men’s 800 free relay finals
- Mixed 200 medley relay finals
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