19TH ASIAN GAMES
- Sunday, September 24th – Friday, September 29th (swimming)
- Hangzhou Olympic Sports Centre Aquatic Sports Arena, Hangzhou, China
- LCM (50m)
- Meet Central
- Entries
- Results
China’s winning 400 medley relay from the 2023 Asian Games this week was a wake-up call for the Americans, who are the defending world and Olympic Champions.
China won the event in a time of 3:27.01, producing the second-fastest time in history behind only the U.S. world record of 3:26.78 set at the Tokyo Olympics. At the 2023 World Championships, the Americans won in 3:27.20, with China a distant runner-up in 3:29.00.
While the emergence of new faces like Jack Alexy and Dare Rose helped bring Team USA back to the top of the world in Fukuoka, China’s big clap-back this week will put the Americans on edge.
If Caeleb Dressel comes back in anything near his 2021 form (his 49.0 butterfly leg clearly stands out in the visual below), Team USA returns to their favorite status. If he doesn’t, it comes down to whether or not China can perform as well halfway around the world as they can at home. After Qin Haiyang‘s World Championship outburst, it seems clear that they can.
Visualization:
Split Comparison
| USA 2021 (WR) | China 2023 | USA 2023 | |
| Back | Ryan Murphy – 52.31 | Xu Jiayu – 52.05 | |
| Breast | Michael Andrew -58.49 | Qin Haiyang – 57.63 | Nic Fink – 58.02 |
| Fly | Caeleb Dressel – 49.03 | Wang Changhao – 50.68 | |
| Free | Zach Apple – 46.95 | Pan Zhanle – 46.65 | |
| Total Time | 3:26.78 | 3:27.01 | 3:27.19 |
The U.S. has gone undefeated in the men’s medley relay at the Olympics, winning in every single edition dating back to the event’s debut in 1960, save the boycotted 1980 Games. The story hasn’t been the same at the World Championships, where the U.S. has only won three of the past six titles, with France (2013), Great Britain (2019) and Italy (2022) also grabbing glory—though the Americans were disqualified in 2013 and initially touched 1st by a wide margin.
The Italians will surely factor in Paris as well, having clocked a European Record of 3:27.51 en route to the 2022 title in Budapest.
They’ve got 100 back world record holder Thomas Ceccon, 2022 100 breast world champion (and 2023 runner-up) Nicolo Martinenghi and freestyle ace Alessandro Miressi. Butterfly is a little bit more of a question mark—part of the reason why they missed the 2023 World Championships final—but they’ll be in the hunt.
A return to form for Adam Peaty to British success in the event, and if James Guy is back on 50-point fly form, they could conceivably be in the 3:27 range as well.
China has long had the pieces to be competitive, but for the first time, it seems as though they’ve now got all four strokes covered and are firing on all cylinders. Can the Americans answer the bell in Paris? Only time will tell.
I remember very well from the 2019 worlds all the way to the Tokyo Olympics how Brits were going to humiliate the us in this relay. Peaty was going to split 55 and Scott another 46. How supposedly MA was going to choke and split a minute. Anyone remember the final result ?
I know different years and different teams but easier said than done!
No one said GBR were gonna humiliate the US. Stop exaggerating.
Exactly! And without a decent 100 backstroker, it was never on the cards for GBR.
I love the people that fabricate things people apparently said just so they can act the victim and argue against it.
Oh dear!
China has an all star in each discipline. They got a really strong breastroker, and backstroker. And they also have Pan, a freestyler who was very close to breaking the 100 free world record. Then you have Wang shun. Altogether they are a real threat to the US gold prospects. It would be an interesting fierce battle for sure in Paris. 😃
You skipped butterfly. Depending on what you mean by “all star”, Wang Changhao might make the cut, but might not. And certainly not vs Dressel or similar.
I agree, the Chinese are a real threat to win the Gold in Paris. I also believe they are have all four strokes covered and are firing on all syringes, oops, cylinders.
Dressel is currently ingesting endless TUEs
Could be, the difference is an individual choice and a systemic approach. Do I know for certain? No, but the math says way too many questions and way too many red flags.
What are the red flags? That the biggest country in the world has 4 elite medley legs? The only one I could see is qin but he’s putting together great races I rlly doubt it
Why are you insecure Anwar?
That a country with most number of humans and great facilities cant put a strong medley relay? LOL. Surely they can. If they had a doping program this would have happened way sooner.
The competitiveness of China challenging the Olympic gold medal depends on whether they can find someone with 53.3 to swim backstroke in the prelim. Or Xu needs to swim the prelim himself and he would never produce a good performance in the final.
Wang Shun is the one.
Or Wang Gukailai – he has a PB of 54.4 in the 100 from Chinese Nationals where he went 25.0 in the 50. Just recently dropped to 24.8 in these Asian Games for Silver, so could potentially be in the 53-point range for a prelims swim in Paris.
The medley relay prelims are the day before in Paris so Xu can go a 53 low and have time to recover for the final.
It’s absolutely nuts that the USA has won this event 15 Olympics in a row, excepting the 1980 boycott.
USA is the only country with the size and depth to dominate medley (until now with China I guess)
Chinas not rlly that deep in comparison
Shiver me timbers
I disagree
China is clearly the favorite as of now. The only real issue seems to be Xu being a bit of a wild card, he seems to never have his very best performances at the big international meets with his split on the previous Chinese record relay having been rather abysmal by his standards as an example.
You forgot to mention that xu jiayu swims everything including semi finals, which brings farigue, there are no semi finals at the Asian games.
A fresh xu jiayu without fatigue is always lightening fast but china needs another backstroker to swim the prelims. There is no depth in China,s backstroke.
Do medley relays have semi-finals? I could’ve sworn relays were prelim finals format.
He swims semis of his individual events. Relays are just prelims.
Yeah..and everyone else has to swim semis. He’s not at a disadvantage from the rest of the field, except from one prelim swim that could be done at around 80% power.
No semis for relays