Paris Olympics, Day 8 Finals: U.S., Australia, China to Battle in Mixed Medley; No Adam Peaty (Relay Lineups)
The eighth finals session of the Paris Olympics swimming program will conclude with the mixed 400 medley relay, an event being contested for the second occasion on the Olympic level.
Click here to view the full relay lineups.
The surprise from the lineup release is that Adam Peaty will not contest the breaststroke leg for defending champion Great Britain, ceding the breaststroke leg to James Wilby. The Brits will also give Duncan Scott a shot on the butterfly leg while Kathleen Dawson (backstroke) and Anna Hopkin (freestyle) reprise their roles from the gold-medal-winning team in Tokyo.
The United States, seeded first after prelims, will bring in an entirely new lineup to the final, opting for the traditional male-male-female-female lineup and including four swimmers who won medals in their individual 100-meter events. Ryan Murphy will swim backstroke, followed by Nic Fink on breaststroke, Gretchen Walsh on butterfly and Torri Huske on freestyle. Huske was the gold medalist in the 100 butterfly ahead of Walsh, but Huske is the fastest freestyler by a significant margin, necessitating her inclusion on that stroke.
Second-seeded Australia will have gold-medal-winning women going first and last, Kaylee McKeown and Mollie O’Callaghan, but the performance of the men set to handle the middle legs, Joshua Yong and Matt Temple, will decide the Aussies fate. Yong earned his spot over 200-meter specialist Zac Stubblety-Cook with a sub-59 breaststroke leg in Saturday’s prelims of the men’s 400 medley relay.
After testing out an alternate lineup in Friday’s prelims, using 100 freestyle gold medalist Pan Zhanle anchoring after two women swam the middle legs, China returns to the traditional order here, with Xu Jiayu, Qin Haiyang, Zhang Yufei and Yang Junxuan. Those first three swimmers were part of China’s world-title-winning lineup last year. All four were individual 100-meter finalists, but Qin has struggled mightily this meet, falling to seventh in the 100 breast and out of the final in the 200 breast. Xu won 100 back silver while Zhang took third in the 100 fly.
Expect the medals to come down to those three teams, but the Netherlands could threaten with Kira Toussaint, Caspar Corbeau, Nyls Korstanje and Marrit Steenbergen. If Toussaint can stay somewhat close to McKeown on the opening leg, the Dutch have a shot. Canada, meanwhile, will need Finlay Knox to put together a strong breaststroke leg, but his teammates Kylie Masse (back), Josh Liendo (fly) and Maggie Mac Neil (free) will be strong.
In lane one, France will bring in superstar Leon Marchand to swim breaststroke following backstroker Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, with Marie Wattel and Beryl Gastadello to bring the team home.Meet Results
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