2019 World University Games/Summer Universiade – Swimming
- July 4th-9th, 2019
- Napoli, Italy
- LCM (50m)
- Live Stream: Olympic Channel (in US), Rai Sport (in Italy)
- Entry Lists & Live Results
Giusy Cisale contributed to this report.
Women’s 400 IM – Final
- World Record: 4:26.36, Katinka Hosszu (HUN), 2016
- Meet Record: 4:34.40, Yui Ohashi (JPN), 2017
Podium (unofficial)
- Makayla Sargent, USA, 4:37.95
- Evie Pfeifer, USA, 4:40.16
- Ilaria Cusinato, ITA, 4:40.18
Team Great Britain has filed an appeal with International University Sports Federation (FISU) on behalf of Abbie Wood who missed the final of the women’s 400 IM on Thursday night. Wood had qualified second out of the morning prelims, going 4:42.65 to win her heat. In the final, Wood was present along with the seven other finalists and, according to eyewitnesses, took her place on the block.
What happened next is unclear. Wood claims not to have heard the command “Take your mark.” Other swimmers have said the starter did give the command, but that it wasn’t very loud. They all claim to have heard the beep, however, and with it, they were off. When they hit the water, it was immediately obvious there was a swimmer missing from lane 5; Wood was standing on her block.
A brief video, where Wood can be seen left on the blocks after everyone else starts, and where the recall signal can be heard, is below:
The race turned out to be a three-way battle among USA’s Makayla Sargent and Evie Pfeifer and Italy’s Ilaria Cusinato. Sargent won with a PB of 4:37.95, while Pfeifer just touched out Cusinato for second place.
According to SwimSwam’s Giusy Cisale, who was on deck and witnessed the entire episode, Wood was on the block in the starting position but didn’t hear the “take your mark” command. All the other swimmers had successful starts. Meet officials have offered to allow Wood the opportunity to swim the race as a timed final, but the Great Britain coaching staff do not want her to swim alone.
While FISU has yet to make an official ruling, we expect an answer tomorrow morning. If Team GBR’s only acceptable outcome is to reswim the entire final but the other seven swimmers refuse, it seems likely that FISU will certify the results as swum.
I can’t get my head round what happened here.
Had the race not been recalled I would have had no sympathy for Wood and would have left her on the blocks with no place, no time and no possibility of a medal.
However, the race was recalled. Presumably the Starter thought it was an unfair start and recalled the race so why was that not acted upon? Not easy to do I know but any one, or indeed all of the swimmers in the water could have been affected by the “quiet” instruction or indeed the recall itself.
Allowing the race to continue has meant that there cannot now be a fair result. Any scenario that is played out has… Read more »
I feel like the starter only signaled the recall after they saw that the swimmer in lane 5 didn’t go. It was certainly not immediately sounded.
Reality check . Wood is a jnr world 400 im silver medallist 2015. That is an achievment . The sport apparently owes her something .
This solo timed final is going to make tomorrow’s event calendar more interesting that’s for certain, especially if she’s in contention to disrupt the tentative podium results. Psychologically, it seems a very difficult swim for Abbie for any number of reasons— especially amongst criticism of it even taking place. Will it even feel like a race having no other swimmers? Majority of swimmers would not perform as well in this event without competition in immediate lanes to gauge their performance. I predict she swims but misses the podium.
Disclaimer: My comment is intended as a playful “fan fiction” scenario (i.e. a situation in which fans have the opportunity to see a healthy, tapered Ella Eastin attack a long course 400 I.M.).
Great Britain coach: “We do not want Wood to swim alone.”
Ella Eastin: “I’ll do it.”
Abbie Wood: “Alright, who’s going to start this sucker?”
David Bowie: “If nobody has any objections, I believe I might be of service.”
(Cue Music: “Let’s Dance.”)
David Bowie: “Now this is going to be a straight swim-off. Old school rules. […] Let’s go to work.”
The way I saw it, 8 got on the blocks and 7 had reasonable starts. She chose not to go late and give her best effort. No time trial and very much no timed final. She had her shot and she blew it, it seems. End of story. Award the medals and move on.
Actually Mike I think It would be a DQ rather than a DNS because she got on the blocks at the long whistle so she did technology swim, she just didn’t complete the race. Really don’t understand how she gets to do the time trial. I really hope there is clear evidence that a malfunction caused a problem but it sure looked like she took her mark with the other ladies. If so, then I don’t really believe the buzzer in her lane didn’t sound when the starting signal was given.
The FISU feed (rewound it to watch —- shows it from the other side), she’s in the start position, everyone leaves, and she immediately puts her hand over her mouth with the biggest “Oops” expression of all time. Feel bad for her though, but not bad enough to swim another 400 IM if I’m one of the other girls.
I’m British and I think this is ridiculous.
If there was some fault with her speaker or the settings were wrong, then fair enough you get another run at it.
But to ask everyone else to swim again is completely unreasonable. Particularly in a 4IM, where the see sawing positions as strengths change between strokes makes having someone to race less of a factor. Clean water probably a bigger advantage.
Here here.
Mistakes happen, but you can’t race again because of a broken speaker. Swim a TT and see what you get.