Medal Contender Erika Fairweather (NZL) Hit With Rare 400 Free Disqualification (VIDEO)

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Erika Fairweather, the defending World Champion in the women’s 400 meter freestyle, was disqualified in prelims of the same event on Sunday for a false start.

Fairweather entered the meet as the 6th seed and touched in 4:03.39, which would have been comfortably through to the final.

False starts are fairly rare in individual races in modern swimming, where one false start leads to a disqualification, and even moreso in a race like the 400 free, where reaction times are generally slower and the hundredth of a second off the block is generally not as critical to the final outcome as it is in, say, the 50 free or 100 free.

Here’s a video of the Disqualification:

Here’s the Fairweather false start at the top of the screen in the blue suit. What do you think?

I think the call is technically correct. I don’t know what the officials’ guidelines are on what is too little to count, but there’s definitely movement there. pic.twitter.com/ue6dJmmnck

— Braden Keith (@Braden_Keith) July 27, 2025

That is combined with the additional rarity of it being a freestyle event, which is likewise a race rarely disqualified on technical grounds. About the only practical ways to get disqualified in a freestyle event are a false start, pulling on the lane rope, pushing off the bottom, swimming in the wrong lane, or some kind of obscure suit violation.

According to official World Aquatics records, only one other woman has ever been disqualified in the 400 free at the World Championships, which are now in their 22nd edition: Jordan’s Karin Belbeisi in 2024, who was the third-to-last seed. No disqualification code was given for that swim.

There have been some higher profile DQs for false starts in the men’s event in history, including Park Tae Hwan of South Korea at the 2012 Olympics and Ian Thorpe at the 2004 Australian Olympic Trials. Ultimately neither call has serious consequences – Park’s was eventually overturned on appeal and Craig Stevens ceded his Olympic spot to Thorpe.

The first session generally was light on disqualifications from officials. The men’s 100 breaststroke, usually one of the most-impacted races by DQs, saw only two: Ashot Chakhoyan from Armenia and Esteban Nunez del Prado from Bolivia, two low-seeded swimmers.

Fairweather, 21, won three medals at least year’s short-staffed World Championships (gold in the 400 free, silver in the 200 free, bronze in the 800 free), and a bronze in this 400 free at the last full-field World Championships in 2023.

Her 3:59.44 to win gold at last year’s World Championship meet is a new best time and ranks her as the 5th-fastest swimmer in history. She entered this meet as the #3 seed and was seen as the most likely to jump that gap to compete with Katie Ledecky, Ariarne Titmus, and Summer McIntosh in this event going forward (who have all been 3:56-or-better).

With Claire Weinstein, the 5th seed, also pulling out, the battle for bronze has become wide open. Australia’s Lani Pallister (4:02.36) and China’s Li Bingjie are the new front-runners for that position.