There have been two huge changes, made today, to the Olympic relay qualifying list by FINA.
The first was not unexpected. FINA has finally incorporated the results from the 2011 Pan Am Games into the lists, which bumps Brazil’s men’s 400 free and medley relays into a much better seeded position. More notably, that eliminates the 16th-place *tie* that had existed between the Brazilian and Kazakhstan men’s 400 medley relay at 3:36.99, and Kazakhstan’s qualified relay has been removed from the list of qualified relays.
This will be a tough situation for the four men from Kazakhstan who were supposed to be on the relay; on the one hand, they didn’t truly earn a top-16 spot, but on the other hand, when we last talked to one of the relay-members two weeks ago, he said it had not even been brought up to them as a possibility by their federation.
The other is a bit of a surprise – the Japanese men have decided to scratch their men’s 400 free relay. This relay would have been seeded 11th headed into the meet, and was unlikely to medal. What’s more, their men’s sprinters haven’t had a good year, so they probably weren’t going to final, but this eliminates Japan as one of the 10 countries that had a full compliment of 9 entries.
The full grid of qualified relays is below.
| Men | Women | |||||||
| 4×100 Free | 4×200 Free | 4×100 Medley | 4×100 Free | 4×200 Free | 4×100 Medley | |||
| 1 | Australia | United States | United States | 1 | Netherlands | United States | United States | |
| 2 | France | France | Australia | 2 | United States | Australia | China | |
| 3 | United States | China | Germany | 3 | Germany | China | Australia | |
| 4 | Italy | Germany | Italy | 4 | China | Canada | Russia | |
| 5 | Russia | Australia | Japan | 5 | Australia | Hungary | Japan | |
| 6 | South Africa | Japan | Netherlands | 6 | Sweden | France | Germany | |
| 7 | Germany | Great Britain | Hungary | 7 | Canada | Italy | Great Britain | |
| 8 | Great Britain | Italy | Brazil | 8 | Japan | Great Britain | Canada | |
| 9 | Belgium | Austria | New Zealand | 9 | Denmark | New Zealand | Denmark | |
| 10 | Brazil | Hungary | Canada | 10 | Great Britain | Japan | Italy | |
| 11 | Hungary | Canada | France | 11 | Italy | Germany | Sweden | |
| 12 | Canada | New Zealand | Russia | 12 | Russia | Russia | Netherlands | |
| 13 | China | Russia | Poland | 13 | New Zealand | Slovenia | Spain | |
| 14 | Venezuela | Denmark | Great Britain | 14 | Hungary | Spain | France | |
| 15 | Serbia | Belgium | South Africa | 15 | Greece | Poland | Iceland | |
| 16 | South Africa | China | 16 | Belarus | Ukraine | Hungary | ||
wow, unbelievable… fina looks stupid now. i feel so bad for the kazakh relay.
Japan is not taking even kenta Ito… they hill have to stick to Takeshi/Fujii for Fly/Free on Medley… not the smartest move I think..
Picture is Hanae Ito’s (Japanese woman). She will be on free relays. However, written part of this article is correct. JPN Men’s 400FR Relay is scratched due to not having 3 other free sprinters in 2012 JPN Olympic Team (a total of 27 swimmers) members.