The Americans have once again made big changes a finals relay, as they continue to show off their depth in Qatar, even if it hasn’t resulted in a relay gold yet.
Three of the four legs for the Americans will be different in finals than in prelims, with butterflier Felicia Lee being the only holdover.
The prelims relay:
- Eugene Godsoe – 23.30
- Brad Craig – 26.35
- Felicia Lee – 25.58
- Natalie Coughlin – 23.55
The finals relay:
- Matt Grevers
- Cody Miller
- Felicia Lee
- Abbey Weitzeil
The Americans are handing the torch to the young Weitzeil in finals, where they could very well have the lead when she hits the water.
Also interesting is that the Americans are using Grevers on the backstroke leg in finals, even though Godsoe had the fastest split of anyone on the backstroke leg of the men’s 200 medley relay earlier in the session. The breaststroker Miller is doing double-duty on that men’s 200 medley.
The top-seeded British relay will remain the same, as will the 3rd-seeded Italians. The Russians made one change, dropping Svetlana Chimrova from the fly leg and replacing her with Anastgasia Liazeva.
The Brazilians are in an interesting spot as the 5th seed. They’re sticking to their guns and not going with the customary M-M-F-F in the final, but they’ve swapped out both male legs. Now they’ll have Felipe Franca swimming breaststroke and Nicholas Santos swimming fly. Those two had the fastest splits on the 200 medley for their respective legs.
I hope she proves me wrong, but I doubt Weitzeil is going to swim faster than a 23.5…I guess they have to put her in that spot if she earned the individual spot. If Natalie doesn’t swim backstroke in the finals of the women’s 4×50 medley…