2019 Worlds: Upcoming Relays Trending Up/Down After 3 Days of Individual Swims

2019 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

• All sports: Friday, July 12 – Sunday, July 28, 2019
• Pool swimming: Sunday, July 21 – Sunday, July 28, 2019
• The Nambu University Municipal Aquatics Center, Gwangju, Korea
• Meet site
• Competition Schedule
• FinaTV Live Stream
• Entry Lists
• Results

Three days into the 2019 World Championships, we’ve already seen some individual events that should affect relay odds moving forward. We take a look at which relays are trending up and down based on individual swims so far.

Women’s 4×200 Free Relay (Thursday)

This is the one we know least about, because we haven’t yet seen the women’s 200 free final. But there are still some conclusions to be drawn:

Trending up:

• China: Yang Junxuan set a new world junior record in the 200 free and is swimming great. Li Bingjie was 1:57 in both of her swims, a tick off the 1:56-high range she was in at Asian Games, but still not as far behind projections as Yang is ahead of them.
• Australia: Ariarne Titmus is swimming great. Emma McKeon is ill, which is a concern, but she was also very good on the 4×100 free relay and the 100 fly.

Trending down:

• USA: Katie Ledecky‘s illness is a big blow. Even if she is well enough to compete by Thursday, she’s probably not the 1:53 leg some were projecting. Allison Schmitt is way off last summer’s 1:55 – she went 1:58.7 and 1:58.2 individually. On the other hand, Leah Smith was good in the 400, and Gabby Deloof is having an awesome summer.

Men’s 4×200 Free Relay (Friday)

Trending Up:

• Australia: Clyde Lewis has been outstanding – in fact, he had the fastest 200 free of anyone in the field with his semifinals swim. Though he missed out on the final, Kyle Chalmers wasn’t bad (1:46.2) compared to his previous season-best (1:45.7). And his 4×100 free relay split was great.
• Russia: Martin Malyutin tied for individual bronze and looks like a cornerstone of this relay. Meanwhile Mikhail Dovgalyuk was within a few tenths of his season-best.
• Great Britain: Duncan Scott went 1:45.5 and 1:45.6 individually, and James Guy was solid, going 1:45.9 and 1:46.1, though he missed the final.
• China: Sun Yang has been plenty controversial, but he’s also been extremely fast. His 1:44.9 gold medal time in the 200 free makes him one of the best relay legs out there. A nice bonus is Ji Xinjie going 1:45.8 after going 1:46 and 1:47 at Asian Games last year.

Trending Down:

• USA: The Americans didn’t have a very promising showing in the 200 free individually. Both of their entrants were well off their best times from last summer (Townley Haas was 1:46.3 after going 1:45.5 last summer; Andrew Seliskar was 1:46.7 after going 1:45.70 last summer) and both missed the final. That’s going to make things even tougher on the Americans in the fight for medals, though Zach Apple and Blake Pieroni have looked great so far.
• Brazil: Fernando Scheffer was OK (1:45.8), but isn’t on pace to be the difference-maker you’d expect from the #2-ranked swimmer in the world pre-meet. Breno Correia gaining six tenths from his season-best is probably more worrying.

Women’s 4×100 Medley Relay (Sunday)

Trending up:

• Australia: The young backstrokers are improving rapidly to fill in for the absent Emily Seebohm. Emma McKeon has been her steady self in butterfly (though an illness is cause for concern), and Cate Campbell was as outstanding as usual on the free relay. The only downside is breaststroke, where Jessica Hansen was only 1:06.9, a far cry from her 1:05-high split from last summer.
• Canada: Similar to Australia, three of the legs look great. Maggie MacNeil is coming off of upset gold in the fly, Taylor Ruck had a great free relay split, and Kylie Masse won the 100 back. The flipside is that breaststroker Kierra Smith was a bit off and missed the final.
• Italy: the breaststroke leg is improving fast, with national record-holder Martina Carraro besting her own mark. The consistent Elena di Liddo went 57.1, 57.0 and 57.0 on fly and Federica Pellegrini has looked good in freestyle already. The only downside is that Margherita Panziera has only been 59-high in backstroke, when she was 58-high back in April.

Trending down:

• USA: It’s really more mixed results for Team USA so far. Kelsi Dahlia appears to have gone a bit backwards in butterfly. But Lilly King looks very strong in the breaststroke and Simone Manuel‘s 51.9 free relay split is very encouraging. Neither of the backstrokers were at their best (Olivia Smoliga 58.9; Kathleen Baker 59.5), but the U.S. could pull a gutsy move and throw world junior record-holder Regan Smith out there – Smith was a half-second faster last month than Smoliga was today.
• Russia: Backstroker Daria Vaskina went a tenth faster (59.46) than Anastasiia Fesikova (59.56) went on the medley at Euros last summer, but neither is as good as Fesikova’s individual 59.1 from last year. Breaststroker Yulia Efimova looks fine (and must be happy to not be the main target of doping storylines for once). Flyer Svetlana Chimrova looks OK, a few tenths slower than she was last season. Maybe the biggest cause for concern is the free relay missing the top 8, with Maria Kameneva only splitting 53.9 after being 53-low on the medley last summer.
• Sweden: There’s no reason to panic about Sarah Sjostrom, who is still a premier fly or free leg. But backstroker Michelle Coleman was 1:01.9 and that just won’t cut it on the leadoff. Breaststroker Sophie Hansson regressed about seven tenths from her 2018 best, too.

Men’s 4×100 Medley Relay (Sunday)

Trending up:

• Great Britain: Adam Peaty is as fast as he’s ever been. And Luke Greenbank improved his best to 53.7 on back, the key weak leg for the Brits. Duncan Scott was pretty close to his best flat start time on the 4×100 free relay, but not as good as the 47.0 flying start he hit at Worlds in 2017. Still, he looked solid in the 200 free, as did likely flyer James Guy.
• China: gold medalist Xu Jiayu is swimming great in the backstrokes. Yan Zibei lowered his own Asian and Chinese records in the breaststroke. Sprints will probably be an issue (the fastest free relay split was just 48.5), though.
• USA: Andrew Wilson‘s 58.9 breaststroke was probably better than most were projecting. Caeleb Dressel already looks great in the butterfly, and they’ve got at least three good choices on free, with Zach Apple splitting 46.8, Nathan Adrian 47.0 and Blake Pieroni 47.4. That’s a net gain for the U.S., even with backstroker Ryan Murphy looking off his game.

Trending down:

• Brazil: back and breast have actually looked good. But if Brazil was going to contend in this relay it was built on the expectation of a huge anchor split. Marcelo Chierighini couldn’t break 48 in two tries and no one on the free relay split better than 47.7. It’s probably not Brazil’s year in this race.