2020 TOKYO SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES
- When: Pool swimming: Saturday, July 24 – Sunday, August 1, 2021
- Open Water swimming: Wednesday, August 4 – Thursday, August 5, 2021
- Where: Olympic Aquatics Centre / Tokyo, Japan
- Heats: 7 PM / Semifinals & Finals: 10:30 AM (Local time)
- Full aquatics schedule
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The relay lineups for the men’s 4×200 freestyle prelims feature a few interesting notes on the fourth heats session from Tokyo, including the United States opting to use Blake Pieroni and rest Zach Apple.
Pieroni was seventh in the men’s 200 free final at the U.S. Olympic Trials, meaning the 4×200 free relay wasn’t an event he was brought to Tokyo for. However, he did qualify in the 4×100 free relay, and helped the Americans win gold on Monday morning.
Rather than the rest the #3 swimmer from Trials, Drew Kibler, the Americans are leaving off Apple, who was fifth but showed that he was on supreme form by anchoring the 4×100 free relay in a blistering 46.69.
Apple will also have the prelims of the individual 100 free earlier in the session.
Kibler will lead the team off, followed by Andrew Seliskar and Patrick Callan, fourth and sixth at Trials, respectively, and then Pieroni will anchor.
Kieran Smith, Townley Haas and Apple will then be expected to draw in from the final, along with likely the fastest swimmer from the heats. There’s always a chance Caeleb Dressel is used if all four are underwhelming, but it feels like a long shot.
Other Notes
- Australia: Are resting both Kyle Chalmers (individual 100 free) and Thomas Neill, using the runner-up from Trials, Elijah Winnington.
- Great Britain: 200 free Olympic champion Tom Dean will anchor the team, while silver medalist Duncan Scott bypasses the heats.
- Hungary: Have opted not to use their fastest swimmer, Kristof Milak, who is readying himself for the men’s 200 fly final.
- ROC: Leaving 200 free finalist Martin Malyutin and Alexander Shchegolev (third at Olympic Trials) off the prelim team. Ivan Girev will swim. Girev was second at Russian Trials but didn’t have a strong prelim showing in the individaul race,
Heat 1
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Israel (Loktev, Namir, Frankel, Cohen Groumi)
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Hungary (Hollo, Zombori, Kozma, Marton)
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China (Ji, Hong, Zhang, Wang)
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ROC (Dovgalyuk, Krasnykh, Girev, Vekovishchev)
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Italy (di Cola, Ciampi, de Tullio, Megli)
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France (Pothain, Salvan, Tesic, Atsu)
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Switzerland (Djakovic, Liess, Ponti, Mityukov)
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Poland (Majchrzak, Kraska, Sieradzki, Kawecki)
Heat 2
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Korea (Lee, Hwang, Kim, Lee)
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Germany (Märtens, Zellmann, Mühlleitner, Heidtmann)
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Great Britain (Richards, Guy, Jarvis, Dean)
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Australia (Graham, Horton, Winnington, Incerti)
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United States (Kibler, Seliskar, Callan, Pieroni)
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Brazil (Melo, Scheffer, Sartori, Correia)
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Japan (Yanagimoto, Matsumoto, Hagino, Takahashi)
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Ireland (McMillan, McGeever, Hyland, Ryan)
#BringBackBodysuits
Here’s what I think is possible
Smith 1:44.9
Haas 1:44.9
Apple 1:44.9
Dressel 1:43.5
That’s a 6:58 low
Whoa, down boy! Smith already showed he can’t hit any better than 1:45+…
Haas appears to be slightly off form from trials…so more likely he’s in the 1:45.0-1:45.5 range AT BEST.
Apple does have 100 speed but holding on to a 200 is probably unlikely…at best 1:45.0-1:45.5 again.
Dressel – will have a 100 semi-final before this…what worries me about puttig him on this relay is his training…it’s mainly for sprints…he could certainly swim ‘up’ to a 200, but he only gets 1 chance at swimming it perfect…out too fast? He’ll die. Out too slow? He may wind up trying to spend too much energy trying to catch up and affect his racing down the road. With Great Britain in… Read more »
Smith literally did a 1:45.0. He can definitely go a 1:44.9, even likelier with a relay start.
Haas was 1:45.6 individually in 2018 and went 1:43.78 on the relay.
I’d definitely take a 1:45 low from Apple
Dressel trains with Gregg Troy. He’ll be fine.
I’m one of those who think Dressel has a great 200 in him. But he’s not dropping a “prime Phelps” level split. If he could do that he’d have been a 1:45 mid to low at that Trials prelims.
Relay likely to be Haas, Kibler, Seliskar, Smith in some order.
Not sure about Haas
Us not winning. Put MA in heats