Duncan Scott Onto Great Britain’s Mixed 4×100 Freestyle Relay for Finals (ALL LINEUPS)

2023 WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

Compared to the mixed medley relay, the mixed freestyle relay strategy doesn’t get all that complicated. Put your two fastest men on the first half, and your two fastest women on the back. Boom, done. This is so much so the accepted strategy that of the 43 nations who swum in prelims, only 8 opted for a different configuration.

Because of how accepted the M/M/F/F strategy is, there aren’t a lot of surprises about what the finals relay lineup looks like. In fact, there’s only five differences from our predicted lineups, including projected swimmers and their spot on the relay. The United States is running with Jack Alexy, Matt King, Abbey Weitzeil, and Kate Douglass. The Australians are the favorites for gold, and they’ve loaded up with Jack Cartwright, Kyle Chalmers, Shayna Jack, and Mollie O’Callaghan.

The biggest surprise of the lineups is that it’s Duncan Scott who is the second British man on the lineup. The Brits rolled with Jacob Whittle, Tom Dean, Lucy Hope, and Freya Anderson during prelims so it seemed that the one move they had left to make was to bring British record holder and 200 free world champion Matt Richards on for finals.

But, the Brits have swapped out both Whittle and Dean, replacing them with Richards, and Duncan Scott. They’ve also brought in Anna Hokin, as expected.

It’s an interesting choice for them to make. Scott finished second in the 100 free at 2023 British Trials, but he dropped the event in favor of the 200 IM. That decision gave Richards a finals berth and he made the most of it, breaking the British record three times and finishing fifth.

Scott earned silver in the 200 IM, and lead-off GB’s gold-medal winning 4×200 freestyle relay in 1:45.42. Scott has thrown down some monster relay splits in his career (including a 46.14 100 free split to anchor their 2019 Worlds medley relay; but, so has Dean, who split a field-best 1:43.84 on yesterday’s 4×200 free. As the Brits have now used all four of the likely male candidates for this relay, this could be a case of them trying to maximize medals for their swimmers, which we’ve seen the U.S. do many times.

So, what were the other discrepancies between our projected lineups?

Thomas Ceccon comes in for the Italians. It’s a move that makes sense–Ceccon has been having a great meet, and has now had a couple of days rest after a busy opening to the meet. On the Italian’s 4×100 free relay, Ceccon split 47.03, his fastest rolling split of his career.

For the Canadians, it’s Josh Liendo who leads-off the relay. Liendo’s butterfly has been much stronger at this meet than his freestyle, and he actually missed out on the individual 100 free final. Still, he remains their fastest male 100 freestyle flat start, which is likely why they went with him. He’ll be coming off the 100 fly final, though there should be plenty of turn around time. Plus, Ruslan Gaziev has been throwing down some strong relay splits for the Canadians this week.

The other two differences are on the Japanese team. Instead of using Katsuhiro Matsumoto, they’ve turned to Tomonobu Gomi to lead them off. It’s an unexpected tactic, as  Gomi led off in the slowest time among the men, 49.65. But, they’ve kept him on the relay in that same spot. They’ve also opted not to use Rikako Ikee, who’s racing in the women’s 50 butterfly final earlier in the session, Instead, it’s Yume Jinno who will bring the team home in front of their home crowd.