We’ve got one day to go in Shanghai, but the action is nowhere near over. The morning (nighttime US time) prelims session will be pretty quick, with only heats of the 400 IM’s and men’s 400 medley. But in the evening session, there will be at least 21 medals handed out, so there’s plenty of action yet to come.
For a full meet schedule, check out our day 4 preview, where we laid it out according to different timezones.
Most of the big names on the women’s side (Natalie Coughlin, Missy Franklin, Federica Pellegrini, Alicia Coutts) are done swimming, but on the men’s side the biggest names (James Magnussen, Michael Phelps, Ryan Lochte) still have at least one swim to go.
1. Men’s 400 IM – Ryan Lochte broke the 200 IM World Record earlier in this meet, but is much further away from Michael Phelps’ mark of 4:03.84. Still, with what he’s done with his underwaters, this one isn’t totally out of reach. Regardless of the record chase, this race appears to lineup for another American 1-2 finish, as Lochte and Tyler Clary combined for all 5 of the world’s times under 4:10 last year. Hungary’s Laszlo Cseh and Brazil’s Thiago Pereira haven’t been incredible at this meet, but they’ve still been very good and should be fighting for medals alongside Japan’s Yuya Horihata and China’s Chaosheng Huang.
2. Men’s 400 Medley Relay – This race has lined up as a tight relay throughout the meet, and what we’ve seen so far only reenforces that. The Americans and the French have both lived up to billing, and with James Magnussen on their anchor leg, the Australians suddenly look in contention. Don’t sleep on the Japanese either. I see this race being a battle between the Americans and the French, however, who have both swum very well in this meet. France has the edge on the backstroke and the freestyle, and the breaststroke is probably fairly even with Eric Shanteau reported to have won the relay spot away in a time trial. The Americans will have to make up the ground on the butterfly leg, where individual 100 fly champion Michael Phelps will be faced off against sometimes-butterflier Fred Bousquet.
3, Women’s Slash ‘n’ Dash – The women’s 50 free final will occur during the evening session on day 8, and like most 50 freestyles at this level should be very tight. The Netherlands’ Ranomi Kromowidjojo looked very strong in the semifinal, but Belarus’ Aleksandra Herasimenia and Denmark’s Jeanette Ottesen were co-100 meter champions, where both made big improvements between the semifinal and the final. The wiley veteran, Therese Alshammar of Sweden, will also be lurking in an inside lane.
4. Final World Record Watch – The USA’s Jessica Hardy will be the final big record watch of this meet when she dives in for the 50 breaststroke. In prelims, about 10 minutes after prelims of the 50 free, she swam a 30.20. In the semifinal, she wasn’t as good without the free sprint to warm her up, but the World Record of 29.80 that she set at the U.S. Open in 2009, could be touched if she hits her warmup. The women’s 50 breaststroke will come first in this final, before Hardy’s 50 freestyle later. Trojan Aquatics will be looking for a medal sweep in this event, with Rebecca Soni and Yuliya Efimova big favorites for silver and bronze, though they’ll have to fight off the Australians Leiston Pickett and Leisel Jones.
5. Men’s 50 backstroke – This race might be the sprint-final that I’ve been most looking forward to in this meet, and it will come as the final men’s individual final of the meet. Liam Tancock of the UK has been the best in the world in this event for the better part of a decade, including three-straight World Championship medals in the event. Last year, however, France’s Camille Lacourt stormed the world and came within .03 of Tancock’s World Record. This should be an awesome battle, especially if Lacourt can clean up his start from the semifinals, and backstroke races have the most intense and unpredictable finishes. If it comes down to a touch, Tancock has historically had the quicker arm speed, which might mean he can get his arm around quicker and on the wall, even if their heads are even.
Swimming is a Timed sport.
The many rounds in Athletics are races =often the first 4 in round one then the first 3 then the first 2 + fastest losers .
Ditto speed skating track cycling .
Diving & gymnastics are purely points sports.
However the biggest suck of all is that Water Polo gets one gold medal in Olympics when beige events eg m200 breastroke with about 20 decent performers globally gets one also.
In Worlds they dont overall tally but even in swimming m 50 mt breastroke is not the 400free or the 400 relay.
Each sport is its own crazy.
There are plenty of sports with B-finals – 3rd place match in the world cup, water polo plays the brockets out in 11th and 13th place games. The difference there being you don’t play those games until you’re out of the running for the championship – in swimming, for most races you would hope swimmers would scratch the B final to rest for other races where they had a chance to file.
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BK,
Surely you also know that team sports are not apt comparison. Team sports do need to play against each other to establish rankings, while the rankings for swimming is already established by the times recorded in the events.
Swimming is speed sport, the… Read more »
B finals . HaHa
I remember Madrid or somewhere in 82 where Australians won most of the B (not A ) finals & were declared The Banana Finals Champs” !
Very funny.
B finals are pointless.
Have you heard anything like that in other disciples, such as athletics or skating?
there was a time in the olympics and worlds were there were no semis, i think it changed after atlanta. there used to be a B final and i remember in 84 (i was only 13 then) in the men’s 400 free the german favorite did not make the final, but his time in the b final was faster than the a final winner. of course he did not get awarded the gold, but it caused a stir.
@BK
Sure – shoot me an email anytime, I mis-entered my email (rs vs. sr) but it should be right now.
Timbo I disagree that it would eliminate pools from hosting international events. Ten lanes and 50 meters is the standard for FINA international events right now as far as I know.
@JAG
I disagree about ridding the event of the 50s and 1500 for women and 800 for men.
However, i think you have a strong point about eliminating the semis in favor for a 10 field final. I think that could be much more exciting. Most people (general public) do not even watch prelims or semis in swimming anymore – only the finals.
I would love for someone to conduct some data-mining and look at how many top “3 seeds” do not end up making the top 10 times. I think swimming would benefit from cutting out the semis – and making it a top 10 final’s swim. DISCLOSURE: It would eliminate some pool from hosting major events.
This would… Read more »
JAG, finally you say something sensical! (kidding :-))
Prelims to finals is the way to go. The schedule is too confusing for the modern swim fan – if they sit through the prelims in the morning, they want to see the finals that night. With 10 lane pools, not much of a reason not to. At this point, most pools for Worlds are custom-built anyways in the modern day, so 10 lanes is definitely doable. Then you could cut it back to maybe…6 days without harming anyone’s event schedules too badly.
Timbo – are you commenting with a real email address? Wanna shoot you a note about something.