Men’s 400 Medley Relay
The American men will enter the final race of the FINA World Championships, the 400 medley relay, as gold-medal favorites after the so-called “B” team qualified first in prelims. Ryan Murphy (52.69), Cody Miller (58.99), Tim Phillips (50.74) and Townley Haas (47.24) qualified in 3:29.66, which was faster than the time an American squad swam to win gold in the event at the last World Championships in Kazan.
Matt Grevers, Kevin Cordes, Caeleb Dressel and Nathan Adrian figure to comprise the finals quartet, and all four won medalsin their individual 100-meter events.
Japan qualified second but almost two seconds back in 3:31.63. Ryosuke Irie (52.86), Yasuhiro Koseki (59.11), Yuki Kobori (51.27) and Shinri Shioura (48.39) made up that team. Russia’s Grigory Tarasevich (53.71), Anton Chupkov (59.06), Daniil Pakhomov (51.55) and Danila Izotov (47.80) took third in 3:32.12.
Great Britain qualified fourth in 3:32.35, but Adam Peaty did not compete in prelims and is bound to make a big impact in the finals. Brazil took fourth in 3:32.38, followed by Hungary (3:33.35), China (3:33.50) and Belarus (3:33.83).
Other notable names figuring to come in for the finals in the evening include Russia’s Kirill Prigoda, the bronze medalist in the 100 breast, and China’s Xu Jiayu, the World Champion in the 100 back.
In a stunner, Australia missed the final in ninth place. Mitch Larkin posted a very disappointing 54.21 leadoff split, and the team could never recover.
