2016 RIO OLYMPIC GAMES
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Swimming: August 6-13
- Olympic Aquatics Stadium, Barra Olympic Park, Rio de Janeiro
- Prelims – 9:00 a.m/12:00 p.m PST/EST (1:00 p.m local), Finals – 6:00 p.m/9:00 p.m PST/EST (10:00 p.m local)
- SwimSwam previews
- Day 1 Schedule & Results
- Live Stream (NBC)
The American women may have taken silver tonight (behind a world-record-setting Australian team featuring the fastest two women in the world, Cate and Bronte Campbell), but they threw down the fastest swim in American history for that second place: a 3:31.89 to outdo the previous record by nearly half a second.
Abbey Weitzeil swam the fastest split of the team, a second-leg 52.56 that was only outdone by the aforementioned Campbells, Sweden’s Sarah Sjostrom, and defending Olympic champ Ranomi Kromowidjojo.
Also on the team was lead-off Simone Manuel, who led off faster than anyone else in the field with 53.36. After the last few years, it almost seems like Manuel should already have a whole resume of Olympic experience, but this was her first-ever Olympic event.
Swimming third was Dana Vollmer, taking on her second event of the evening after the semifinals of the 100 fly (53.18). Katie Ledecky served as the anchor in 52.79, winning the first of what could be an Olympic five medals for the week.
The previous record was a 3:32.31 set by Missy Franklin, Natalie Coughlin, Shannon Vreeland, and Megan Romano at the 2013 World Championships in Barcelona.
It’s rare that over the course of just three years, the entire relay has seen a complete turnover to be four different swimmers. The Aussie relay broke their national (and world) record tonight from 2014; tonight’s swim featured three of the same swimmers from the previous record.
2nd from the left is definitely doping. Just look at that chin.
Why not to post the great picture of yours, so we will know how the normal person should look like.
Nice try fatty, trying to use my good looks for your tinder profile. Go and catfish somewhere else. 😉
🙂
2d from the left says : ” Just mind your business and go for a walk in the park , Dude “
The 400 freestyle relay was exciting to watch and all three medal winning teams broke their respective national records. The race was closer than expected and all twelve women have every right to be proud and happy with the way they raced. I thought Coach David Marsh’s line-up order was well conceived; the USA team was right there at the 300 meter mark (so, too, the Canadians). The best team won with a world record and they had to compete brilliantly to achieve what they did. I’m impressed with the Canadiam team and delighted for the American women. Everyone should hold their heads high and enjoy the moment. it’s what the Olympics is, hopefully, all about!
That is exactly what it was – great Olympic race. Totally agree with you.
Swimmers’ age :
Australia: 22y,22y,22y,24y (heats only: 22y).
USA: 19y,19y,28y,19y (heats only: 30y,21y,26y)
Canada: 24y,22y,16y,16y (heats only: 25y)
I think Australia is not that old to defend this title in Tokyo. 🙂
Simone Manuel is 20.
the USA were smashed, move on and suck silver!
Woah there little fella, no need to get dicey. The American women are very proud to have that silver around their necks tonight in Rio. Right now the Aussies are in a league of their own, no one can touch that relay. Simone, Abbey, Dana, and Katie made their country proud tonight and capped off a good first night for the USA.
I wouldn’t call it “smashed”. Australians had more than 3sec advantage on paper but won just body length at finish.
Look how young American team is. Just replace a young mother with another young talent and this team will be superb at the next world championships. The next world record will be an American one as well. Australians are at their limits already but American girls are on the move.
I think Usa team has done the best they can, and I am sure they own the 4 fastest splits among others US freestyler, but if Abbey and Simone or other members want to win Aussie team in relay a couple of years, they need to start improving their time to 52 mid and make it consistently..
Emma McKeon swam significantly slower than her best time backing up from the fly. That Australian team can go faster. I’d say if they all put it together at the same time they would likely be able to squeak under 3:30.
Yes, Emma McKeon was “backing up from the fly”. But so were Vollmer, Oleksiak and Sjostrom. McKeon actually bounced back to the area where she was for years: 53.3- 53.4 flat start. Let’s see how stable her sudden April improvement is: 52.8 at 100 free and 1:54.8 at 200 free.
Same thing can be said about Pellegrini. Her 53.89 (rt – 0.18) wasn’t even close to her 53.18 flat start one month ago.
Tacky & needless comment !! What comes around goes around and there’s going to be more relays at this meet where USA kicks the competition’s (incl AUS) backsides than ones they lose.
USA swam to what is probably their current “ceiling” for this relay and for that they deserve due commendation. AUS ….. DIDN’T swim to their optimum, but that wasn’t required to win this relay with some comfort.
I agree. Both teams did well, and it is clear that the US has lost its edge in women sprint. I hope that clubs and colleges are working hard to correct that situation, including doing more stroke work.
And your Olympic silver medal count is?
Why is nobody talking about the call to put Volmer in over Weir. Didn’t Volmer get 6th at trials. And Weir went faster in the prelims than she did at trials when she beat Volmer.
Why didn’t they go Abby, Simone, Weir, ledecky? Or even Lia Neil beat Volmer at trials. ???
Agreed. The order was strange and Weir should have been on it over Dana.
Order should have been simone, weir, ledecky, weitzeil.
My thoughts are that it was open knowledge that Vollmer wasn’t fully tapered at Trials and the coaches decided to go with that Weir and Neil would still get medals anyway. Either that, or the fact that Vollmer’s best time was slightly (.01) faster than Weir was in prelims.
I think you’re right. And Vollmer’s prelims 100 fly time being so fast (especially her first 50 speed) probably confirmed that in Marsh’s mind.
I think the other factor was adding some serious Olympic finals relay experience (Vollmer) to a very young, inexperienced (at least for relays) team. Sure Weir has some experience, but nothing compared to Vollmer, who has always come through big on relays.
Actually it was the right call to include Vollmer in the finals. She was third best out of all the swimmers.
Prelims went like:
Wier (53.60) – Neal (53.63) – Schmitt (53.72) – Ledecky (52.64)
Finals went like:
Manuel (53.36) – Weitzel (52.56) – Vollmer (53.18) – Ledecky (52.79)
Not if one accounts for relay starts. 🙂
you can’t make relay lineups in a vaccum. you have to consider how the aussies have been lining up. we were heavy underdogs, so you can’t go with the traditional ‘fastest kid anchors’.
weitzel, manuel and whoever else (weir/vollmer- i think they got it right but i can understand the calls for weir) are all ‘known’ 100m freestylers, meaning we’ve seen them perform at peak.
we have no clue what ledecky can do, as she’s never featured it. but we all assume it could be really good. the best scenario for her going ‘big’ is being chased by the aussie anchor.
so you throw your speed out there and hope its enough to put ledecky in first and trust… Read more »
To comply with the “use all 6” rule, and have Ledecky on the relay, USA had to use Vollmer in the final. They used Weir, Neal and Schmidt in the prelim, so only Vollmer was left from the top 6. In hindsight, we could say why not use Vollmer in the prelim and Weir in the finals, though.
Vollmer was there for an individual event. She was not a relay-only swimmer, so the rule about using her didn’t apply.
We didn’t have to comply with the use all 6 rule with Vollmer because she wasn’t a relay-only swimmer, because she qualified in the 100 fly.
Not true. The rule is that you really only invites need to swim The relay. Vollmer is not a really only invite so she did not have to swim the relay.
Because the coaches use a lot more then Trials to determine relay lineups. They factor in prior history and experience, and more importantly the times from the camp leading up to the Olympics. Maybe Dana has been on fire for the last few weeks and was putting up better times in Time Trials. We don’t really know.
I believe I promised on here back in early 2015 that I’d eat my speedo if Ledecky was not on the 4×100 free relay in Rio. Glad I called it right; I hear Lycra is tough to digest.
Have you also suggested that she would have 52sec split? It is amazing how fast people got tired to be surprised by Katie and don’t realize that what we witnessed today is actually beyond comprehension.
Thanks for the splits SwimSwam. I would like to see splits in all of the finals.
https://www.rio2016.com/en/swimming-womens-4-x-100m-freestyle-relay-final
Does that show splits? I could see a list of swimmers but no splits. I’m looking at it on my phone so maybe it’s a mobile Issue.
Not only Campbell sisters were faster than Weitzeil but Kromowodjojo and Sjostrom were as well.
I think that both Weitzeil and Ledecky are capable to break American record at 100 freestyle (53.06 – Weir – 2009)
Overall a great performance by all members of the team. The silver medals are well deserved – Canadians were very close and could’ve easily got the second place should Americans haven’t swum at their best and there wasn’t completely unexpected significant help from Ledecky.
Manuel was only .3 off of it leading off. I hope Simone and Abbey both break 53 in the 100 free final.