King and Efimova to Team Up for Mixed 4×100 Free Relay in Indianapolis

FINA CHAMPIONS SWIM SERIES 2019 #3 – INDIANAPOLIS

While the reignition of the Lilly KingYuliya Efimova rivalry is one of the top draws of this weekend’s 2019 FINA Champions Swim Series stop in Indianapolis, what the pair will do as a team is almost as likely to turn heads.

The breaststroke duo will swim as teammates on the mixed-gender and mixed-nationality 4×100 freestyle relay Friday, and then race against each other as the anchors of separate 4×100 medley relays Saturday, FINA announced. Their free relay also includes Americans Josh Prenot – also a breaststroker – and butterflier Zach Harting.

The teams were drawn at a technical meeting Thursday afternoon in Indianapolis.

King and Efimova have not raced each other since the 2017 FINA World Championships, but have consistently traded world No. 1 swims back and forth since then. So far in 2019, Efimova posted world-leading times in all three breast events at the Budapest stop of this series in early May, but King fired back a week later at the Bloomington Pro Swim Series stop to claim world No. 1 times in the 50 and 100 breast for herself.

King has a two-tenth edge in the 50 (30.03 to 30.26) and three-tenth edge in the 100 (1:05.68 to 1:05.99), while Efimova is No. 2 in the world in the 200 (2:22.52), behind Annie Lazor‘s stunning 2:20.77 from the Bloomington Pro Swim Series two weeks ago.

Full relay team selections for Indianapolis:

4x100m freestyle

TEAM 1Josh Prenot (USA), Zach Harting (USA), Lilly King (USA), Yuliya Efimova (RUS)

TEAM 2 – Ryan Murphy (USA), Nicholas Santos (BRA), Etiene Medeiros (BRA), Kylie Masse (CAN)

TEAM 3 – Jack Conger (USA), Arno Kamminga (NED), Sydney Pickrem (CAN), Hali Flickinger (USA)

TEAM 4 – Jacob Pebley (USA), Michael Andrew (USA), Ranomi Kromowidjojo (NED), Kelsi Dahlia (USA)

4x100m medley

TEAM 1Kylie Masse (CAN), Nicholas Santos (BRA), Townley Haas (USA), Yuliya Efimova (RUS)

TEAM 2 – Anastasia Fesikova (RUS), Michael Andrew (USA), Vladimir Morozov (RUS), Sydney Pickrem (CAN)

TEAM 3 – Etiene Medeiros (BRA), Kelsi Dahlia (USA), Andrii Govorov (UKR), Arno Kamminga (NED)

TEAM 4 – Jacob Pebley (USA), Jack Conger (USA), Ranomi Kromowidjojo (NED), Lilly King (USA)

In This Story

24
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

24 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
ERVINFORTHEWIN
5 years ago

thats a wild idea – but who knows – it might well work

Octopus
Reply to  ERVINFORTHEWIN
5 years ago

You go up on the Omega page upper right corned, click on calendar and can set to Indy,

Coach Mike 1952
5 years ago

The live results link above goes to Budapest, FYI. TY

Octopus
Reply to  Coach Mike 1952
5 years ago

Sorry I missed the place of my reply – it went one below 🙁

Lpman
5 years ago

I still want to see King approach the 200 lcm br with the same swagger and finger-wagging that she approaches the 50 and 100 with. She tends to tone down her rhetoric whenever the 200 rolls around

ERVINFORTHEWIN
Reply to  Lpman
5 years ago

pay attention to your affirmations – she might well step up on the 200 breast and make u look ridiculous ….

anonymoose
Reply to  ERVINFORTHEWIN
5 years ago

that aged well

Nswim
5 years ago

If their team actually won and they both did the finger wag…

Hswimmer
5 years ago

Dead lol

Zanna
5 years ago

Townley doing fly? Nicholas Santos doing breast?

USA
Reply to  Zanna
5 years ago

All those 50 flys against Andrew Wilson need to show

Taa
5 years ago

Would someone please speak up and tell FINA how stupid this is. Just use the relay money to pay some bonuses. UFC pays performance bonuses and I think fina can do the same. So if Lilly and her Russian friend have a great race kick them down an extra 5 or 10k.

IU Swammer
Reply to  Taa
5 years ago

As someone who is going to the meet, I’d much rather see these relays than know there’s a potential that a swimmer or two might get a bonus if they hit some arbitrary time. I want to see racing for racing’s sake.

Anonymous
Reply to  Taa
5 years ago

Making swimming more interesting to nonswim fans could be the point, maybe not stupid. Putting a little mix into the 100this/200that monotony could make meets more interesting and less full on intense. I think it’s a great idea!

Pvdh
5 years ago

That team is going to get yeeted by the other ones

About Torrey Hart

Torrey Hart

Torrey is from Oakland, CA, and majored in media studies and American studies at Claremont McKenna College, where she swam distance freestyle for the Claremont-Mudd-Scripps team. Outside of SwimSwam, she has bylines at Sports Illustrated, Yahoo Sports, SB Nation, and The Student Life newspaper.

Read More »