Early Olympic Relay Look: Mixed 4×100 Medley Relay

As the dust settles on U.S., Australian, Canadian, and French Olympic Trials, we’re taking a bird’s-eye view of how the relay battles are shaping up.

Olympic-Qualified Relays

The top 12 relays at 2019 World Championships earned Olympic berths for their nations. Four more nations earned berths by putting up the fastest times among unqualified nations over a 15-month period leading up to the Olympics.

Aggregate times below are based on season-bests from September 2020 through June 2021. Lifetime-bests or time drops can obviously change the picture significantly. We’ll do a more in-depth preview of each relay event in the coming weeks, but this first-look projection is aimed at specifically seeing the impacts of recent Olympic Trials meets on the Olympic relay picture.

The Setting / The Doubles

As this is a brand-new event to the Olympic lineup, it’s probably a good idea to check in on what other events will share a session with finals of this new addition.

Saturday, July 31 – Morning Finals Session

• Men’s 100 fly final
• Women’s 200 back final
• Women’s 800 free final
• Men’s 50 free semifinals
• Women’s 50 free semifinals
• Mixed Medley Relay final

In particular, that 100 fly and those 50 frees will probably cause doubles for some top athletes, with some 200 backstrokers perhaps affected too.

The Strategy

Obviously, this relay has a lot more variables than any of the six we’ve already covered. Below, we’ll drop in two different lineups for each team. To keep things consistent, the first lineup calculates the time differences between the top man and top woman in each stroke, then puts men on the two strokes with the biggest difference. The second lineup will be the exact inverse, if only to show the other options at each stroke.

Note: the two lineup listed are not the best two options for each team – they are meant to show the top male and female options in each stroke.

We’ll puzzle out each team’s best strategy a little more fully in writing, and even more so when we kick off our Olympic event previews series this month.

The Favorites

The United States coaches will have the luxury of choosing between two world-record-holding backstrokers: Murphy holds the men’s world record and Smith still holds the 200 world record, even if her 100 back world record was clipped by a tenth this summer.

Team USA has typically used King, the best women’s breaststroker on the planet, to cover a weakness in men’s breaststroke – but if Andrew matches his U.S. Trials performance, that’s no longer such a glaring weakness for the U.S. Dressel should swim either fly or free. There’s a sneaky theory that says the U.S. should try Andrew on fly, allowing King to swim breast and Dressel to anchor. That would be very unorthodox, but is an outside-the-box option. We explored a bunch of options earlier this week.

It’s worth noting that Dressel will swim three events in this session: the 100 fly final, 50 free semifinal, and then this relay. Andrew will potentially swim the 50 free semi before this relay. Weitzeil will probably also swim the 50 free semifinal.

Australia has a really deep group of eight here – there’s not much split between their two lineups. They’re also the defending world champs after Cate Campbell ran down the U.S. with a 51.1 split in 2019. (Campbell is another option on free, though she’ll likely have 50 free semifinals that session, too).

The one problem is that Australia’s weakest leg for both men and women is breaststroke. That means at least one of their star back/fly/free swimmers will have to watch from the bench.

Temple might have a 100 fly final in this session. McKeown will also likely have a 200 back final in this session, perhaps helping Larkin’s chances to make this relay.

Great Britain won this event when it first appeared at the long course World Championships in 2015. Peaty should be a lock on this lineup. So many top nations have standout female backstrokers, and that might help the Brits, if they can swim Dawson on back without getting Peaty stuck in the chop for his important split. That’s basically what happened at Euros, when Great Britain set a European record in 3:38.82.

This relay kind of lines up perfectly for China. Their men’s medley relay has a stacked front half, but question marks on fly and free. But the women’s roster is led by dominant fly/free swimmer Zhang, with good freestyle depth. China might be a sneaky pick to snag gold here despite really not putting much emphasis on the mixed-gender relays at previous World Championships.

(China’s highest long course Worlds finish in any mixed-gender relay is a 2017 bronze. they swam alternates and took a DQ in this race a 2019 Worlds).

Another break in China’s favor: they shouldn’t have a lot of doubles in that session, especially if they use Xu and Yan on the front end.

The Contenders

Russia has a ton of depth here too – they’ve actually got an interesting case where picking the swimmers by the biggest deficit produces a slower time than the alternate option. They could also use Evgeny Rylov on back and Kolesnikov on free. Minakov will probably have the 100 fly final in the same session, for what that’s worth.

Canada and Russia kind of have the opposite problem – Russia’s strength is their men’s roster, while Canada’s dominant women’s roster has to cover for the men’s side in this relay. Masse is another one who could benefit if multiple nations choose to use female backstrokers. But if everyone goes with the traditional man-man-woman-woman lineup, MacNeil and Oleksiak could make up a dangerous back half – and a fun one to watch chew up the field.

Italy is very strong in breaststroke on both sides, and it’s too bad only one of their multiple options can swim the final. Ceccon is a rising young swimmer, and if he has a good meet, he could help this relay a lot on the backstroke leg.

The Field

The Dutch probably don’t have a lot of alternate lineup options. But this relay does allow them to use their standout men’s breaststroke leg in Kamminga, plus their top-notch women’s backstroker and freestyler(s). (One of Heemskerk or Ranomi Kromowidjojo should swim here, although Kromowidjojo will probably have 50 free semifinals in the same session.)

Host nation Japan could really go after this relay if superstar Rikako Ikee is back to being one of the better fly/free swimmers in the field. Japan has typically been very good in breaststroke, so both their men’s and women’s breaststroke legs could conceivably take a big step forward. Ikee could also swim fly on the women’s side, where she’s been 57.7 this year.

Germany made the 2019 Worlds final. They won’t have a lot of options here, with the top male backstroker (Marek Ulrich at 53.75) and top female flyer (Angelina Koehler at 58.64) not making the announced Olympic roster. That means Riedemann and Friese are probably locked in, and Germany gets to choose between Schwingenschlogl and Anna Elendt (1:07.17) in breaststroke and Bruhn and Damian Wierling (48.48) in free.

Belarus swam in the Euros final last month. Their relay is built around star breaststroker Shymanovich, and the other pieces will move around based on Shkurdai, who is a star freestyler and butterflyer (57.92 this season). They went with the above lineup at Euros, but when they booked this Olympic berth at 2019 Worlds, they used Shkurdai on fly and Aksana Dziamidava (55.76) on free.