French Quartet Rewrite Record Books & Qualifies for the Final in Mixed Medley Relay

2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

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MIXED 4×100 MEDLEY RELAY – HEATS

• World Record: 3:37.58 – Great Britain (2021)
• Olympic Record: 3:37.58 – Great Britain (2021)
• 2021 Winning Time: 3:37.58 – Great Britain
• 2021 Time to Advance to Finals: 3:43.94

1. United States (Regan Smith, Charlie Swanson, Caeleb Dressel, Abbey Weitzeil) – 3:40.98
2. Australia (Iona Anderson, Zac Stubblety-Cook, Emma McKeon, Kyle Chalmers) – 3:41.42
3. China (Xu Jiayu, Tang Qianting, Zhang Yufei, Pan Zhanle) – 3:42.26
4. Netherlands (Kai Van Westering, Caspar Corbeau, Tessa Giele, Marrit Steenbergen) – 3:43.60
5. Great Britain (Kathleen Dawson, James Wilby, Joe Litchfield, Anna Hopkin) – 3:43.73
6. Canada (Blake Tierney, Apollo Hess, Maggie MacNeil, Taylor Ruck) – 3:43.87
7. France (Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, Antoine Viquerat, Lilou Ressencourt, Marie Wattel) – 3:43.99
8. Japan (Riku Matsuyama, Taku Taniguchi, Mizuki Hirai, Rikako Ikee) – 3:44.25

Entering as the 11th seed with a time of 3:46.07, the team from France, seemed to be a long shot to make tomorrow’s final of the Mixed Medley Relay, especially considering the fact that neither their male or female breaststroke options were under the Olympic Qualifying time. However, powered by a home crowd and a successful session that saw all four French swimmers who competed this morning move on to the next round, the mixed relay reached new heights.

The team of Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, Antoine Viquerat, Lilou Ressencourt and Marie Wattel combined to swim a time of 3:43.99, a mark that not only qualified them through into tomorrow’s final as the 7th seed but also demolishing their own National Record(s)

The Fédération française de notation (FFN), the French governing body, has not yet ratified the time from the 2023 Worlds, but it won’t need to now as that time has been smashed to bits.

Much of the improvement can be seen in the backstroke as Ndoye-Brouard has dropped over a second from his time in 2021 to today, with his 52.48 from this morning actually being his personal best. Previously it was 52.50 back from the 2022 Worlds. Wattel’s freestyle leg of 53.05  also was a massive advancement, improving greatly upon Touati’s 54.95.

With the final not occurring until tomorrow, the French are freed up a little and have some room to play with. With Ndoye-Brouard’s success, it seems likely he will remain on the relay. Breastroke, often the crux of French relays, could be filled by the one and only Leon Marchand.

He will have completed his individual events the night before, and as the owner of the fastest 100-yard breaststroke split and having just won the 200 breast, he should be a step up from Viquerat’s 59.91. Marchand split 59.00 on the French medley relay last summer, and more recently, in May, he swam to a new personal best of 59.06.

Wattel was 57.24 in the individual fly, so if she slides over and Beryl Gastaldello comes in for free, the French could easily be looking at another two-second drop and perhaps vie for a medal.

They could, however, also use Emma Terebo on the front (7th in final—59.40), keep Wattel on the free, and have Maxime Grousset pull the 100 fly individual and relay double swim the fly leg. This combination may come out to a little faster of a time, but it relies upon Grousset being able to replicate the 49 fly split he had last summer.