Cate Campbell-Less Aussie Women Battle To Silver In 4×100 Fr Relay

2017 FINA WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Sunday, July 23rd – Sunday, July 30th
• Budapest, Hungary
• LCM (50m)
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Powerhouse swimming nation Australia saw ups and downs on the first finals session of these 2017 World Championships, which rendered the Dolphins collecting two silvers overall on the day.

16-year-old Ariarne Titmus raced her way to a valiant 4th place finish in the women’s 400m freestyle at just 16 years of age, while big Mack Horton secured silver in the men’s version of the 400m freestyle behind rival Sun Yang of China. However, the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay was disqualified, leaving another possible medal on the podium for another team to snatch up to end the men’s events on a sour note.

The women’s 4x100m freestyle relay, however, rebounded the team’s spirit by earning an impressive silver medal, even with a significant disadvantage since winning gold in Kazan, as well as Rio. Their star swimmer, former world record holder in the women’s individual 100m freestyle until tonight, Cate Campbell, has opted out of competing at these championships in the name of physical and mental well-being. Her partner-in-crime, sister Bronte Campbell, who was the double world champion in the women’s 50m and 100m freestyle in Kazan, has since been dealing with shoulder injuries. Her coach, Simon Cusak, even commented that, ‘whatever she swims [in Budapest] will be done on sheer guts.’

But, leave it to the foursome of Shayna Jack, Brittany Elmslie, Emma McKeon and Bronte to indeed depend on those ‘sheer guts’ to get the job done to land on the podium regardless, notching a collective time just over a half a second off of their gold medal-winning time from Kazan.

Making her World Championships debut, 18-year-old Jack led off in a slick 53.75, followed by an all-things-considered monster split by Bronte in 52.14. Olympic relay swimmer Elmslie maintained course in 53.83 to set-up McKeon with a terrific finishing effort. McKeon, who had just fired off a time equal to the Australian and Commonwealth Record in the women’s 100m fly earlier this same session, nailed the final leg in a super quick 52.29.

With a relatively un-tested Jack, an ailing Bronte and an absent Cate Campbell, the Aussie women’s 4x100m free relay could have easily taken a wrong turn to find themselves out of the medals. But the women pulled it together with the help of the veterans to fall just .29 off of the Americans’ time tonight to add a shiny silver medal to help stir up momentum for the remainder of the meet.

Of her individual performance within the relay, Bronte stated, “I’m really happy with that time, I wasn’t really expecting very much.”

“If this meet was a day earlier we might have been in a bit of trouble. I was just getting over sickness, but it’s all good, we made it to the start line, and I’m really proud of how everyone swam.

“It was a pretty tough ask out there, especially when you’ve got Sarah leading off in a 51.71 which I think was the fastest split in the entire race – and it happened in the lead off, which is pretty unheard of. It was a great race to be part of and I’m just proud everyone that they stepped up.”

Additional soundbites from Australia’s swimmers after finals:

• 4th place finisher in the women’s 400m freestyle, Ariarne Titmus said, “It was really fun, l did what Dean (Coach) said and just had fun, I really enjoyed it, it was great with the crowd and everything. I did want to go a bit faster, but I think having to push the heats this morning a lot harder than I’m used to kind of took it out of me, but that’s a really good learning experience and I’ve got get used to doing that when I’m racing the best in the world so I can learn a lot from it.”
• Placing 2nd to Chinese rival Sun Yang, 400m freestyle victor Mack Horton stated, “I thought I could have gone a lot faster, I thought I was capable of more tonight, but it’s the start of the cycle really, so it’s the time I will need to work on and improve on for the next couple of years towards Tokyo. I tried to be a bit stronger in the front end, I was too soft I think, I needed to be harder on myself but like I said it’s the start of the cycle and I can work on that now.”

Australian National Records:

• Emma McKeon tied the Australian and Commonwealth Record of 56.23 in the women’s 100m butterfly. That matches that 2005 World Champion Jessicah Schipper went in 2009 to win silver in Rome. McKeon is seeded 2nd headed into tomorro night’s final.

Australian Medal Table: