Even With Stars Absent, Australian Women Are World Title Favorites in Freestyle Relays
When the women’s 400 freestyle relay lines up at this summer’s World Championships, the Australian team will be missing three of the four swimmers who guided that nation to a third consecutive Olympic gold medal last year. That trio includes the dominant female swimmer at the Olympics after winning seven total medals (Emma McKeon), a veteran who is arguably the finest female relay swimmer in history (Cate Campbell) and another veteran who has a previously won an individual world title in the 100 free (Bronte Campbell).
And the Australian team will still be strong favorites to win a world title without them.
At Australia’s national championships this week, the national champion in the 100 free was 18-year-old Mollie O’Callaghan, whose time of 52.49 edged out the returning Shayna Jack (52.60). Meg Harris, the only returning member of the finals squad from gold-medal-winning relay in Tokyo, placed third in 53.09, and veteran Madison Wilson was fourth in 53.19.
All four of those times were faster than Torri Huske’s winning time in the 100 free from the U.S. International Team Trials last month. It’s early in the year, but the four Australians rank first, second, third and fifth in the world, respectively, with only world-record holder Sarah Sjostrom joining the Aussies in that mix. Those four times add up to 3:31.37, 1.4 seconds faster than Canada’s silver-medal winning time from Tokyo.
To reiterate, that is without three of the best sprinters in Australian history, including the Olympic gold and bronze medalists one year ago.
Two days after that remarkable national-level performance, the women’s 200 free final brought more of the same, another performance that set up Australia as 800 free relay world-title favorites despite a lot of firepower missing. The win in this race went to Ariarne Titmus, the Olympic gold medalist and second-fastest performer in history in the 200 free, her time of 1:53.31 falling marginally short of her best time of 1:53.09.
But Titmus will be another Aussie star absent from Budapest. McKeon, meanwhile, has focused less on the 200 free in recent years, but she has been a mainstay for the Aussies on this relay since 2013. And still, this team will enter the World Championships favored for gold.
Leading the way will be O’Callaghan, who swam a lifetime-best mark of 1:54.94 Friday to surpass Katie Ledecky’s winning mark of 1:55.15 from U.S. Trials. Wilson and Kiah Melverton both swam in the 1:55-high range, while Leah Neale placed fourth in 1:56.10.
All eight swimmers in the field were faster than the second-place American swimmer at Trials. Harris was the last swimmer home in the final at 1:56.82, ahead of the 1:57.08 that 15-year-old Claire Weinstein swam to finish second behind Ledecky in Greensboro, N.C., three weeks ago.
The composite time for Aussies O’Callaghan, Wilson, Melverton and Neale is 7:42.84, while the time based on the top four Americans (Ledecky, Weinstein, Leah Smith and Hali Flickinger) is 7:47.20 — more than four seconds behind.
There is an important caveat when it comes to Australia and the 800 free relay: the Titmus-led squad was heavily favored to win Olympic gold in Tokyo, but the Aussies ended up third in that race behind China and the Americans. O’Callaghan had led off for the Australians in prelims in 1:55.11, but she was left off the finals quartet in favor of an entirely new squad of four swimmers. That move backfired Titmus and McKeon, both exhausted from a long week of racing, could not build an early lead, and the team ended up with a bronze medal, albeit under the existing world record.
The Aussies lack the unblemished recent record in the 800 free relay, but this year’s narrative is the same as in the 400 free relay that they have thoroughly dominated over the past decade: no stars, no problem.
We highlighted the comparison between the Australians and Americans here mostly because no other country has shown most of their cards in long course competition since Tokyo. Canada’s veterans did not need to light the world on fire at their Trials in mid-April, but it’s reasonable to expect Penny Oleksiak and Kayla Sanchez to be hitting their stride in Budapest. Canada’s 400 free relay edged out the U.S. for silver in Tokyo. The 800 free relay placed fourth, but 15-year-old Summer McIntosh remains on her track of rapid improvement.
That Chinese gold medal in the 800 free relay was a totally unexpected performance fueled by Yang Junxuan and Zhang Yufei, and it’s plausible that duo could lead China to a World Championships medal in the 400 free relay as well.
But as the weeks tick by until the World Championships swimming competition gets underway on June 18, the talk in the women’s freestyle relays will rightfully center on the swimmers from Down Under, favored in both events not because of the established stars but in spite of their absence. With emerging star O’Callaghan leading the way, the Aussies’ vastly diminished squads still project to beat everyone else’s best.
W4X100: Clear favourites albeit minus the safety net that the Campbells and more recently McKeon have provided. Both youngsters in Harris & MOC DO have Olympic experience, and in Harris’ case Olympic finals, behind them which is a positive. Jack IS likely to face international media scrutiny in Budapest; the issue will be her capacity to handle this. Therein lies their potential Achilles heel.
W4X200: It is to be hoped that AUS coaches have learned from their exercise in hubris in Tokyo and NOT lock themselves into selection without taking heats performances into account. With Titmus present, it would certainly lie Adv AUS. Without her, they lack a proven gamechanger with MOC at 1.54 high then 1.55 highs. Granted CHN, themselves, lack a gamechanger but two 1.54 lows this year must carry some weight. Whilst AUS can most certainly win; I have this one tilting Adv CHN.