2018 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, December 11th – Sunday, December 16th
- Hangzhou, China
- Tennis Centre, Hangzhou Olympic & International Expo Center
- Live Results (Omega)
In a somewhat surprising turn of events at the end of night 4 in Hangzhou, the Brazilian men’s 4x200m freestyle relay team upset Russia, China and the United States to take gold at the Short Course World Championships while establishing a shiny new World Record to boot.
The foursome of Luiz Melo, Fernando Scheffer, Leonardo Santos and Breno Correia same lights out to produce a winning effort of 6:46.81, crushing the previous World Record mark of 6:49.04 set by Russia back in 2010.
Splits for the Brazilians included a 1:42.03 stunner from Melo to kick things off in best-time fashion. Although America’s Blake Pieroni caught Melo at the end of the first leg with his strong 1:41.85 opener, Melo set the stage for Brazil that they were in it to win it, registering a time that would have won bronze in the individual 200m free event.
Scheffer kept pace with a tremendous 1:40.99, representing one of only two swimmers of the entire field to go under 1:41. Santos punched the wall with a 1:42.81 split, while the Brazilian anchor Correia scored 1:40.98, a time that was needed to ultimately beat the charging Russians by just .03.
See how the entire race unfolded below, courtesy of Yes Swim.
You’ll know we were missing Townley Hass. He’s a must in an 800 free relay for team USA. Nice win Brazil. 💪
Even with Townley , Usa would have had trouble to even be second on this relay .They would have needed a solid /fast Conger + Held in a better shape . In Long course , thats another story altogether . 2019 will be a real challenge to put the best relay to compete with the Brits and Russians & Brazilians and win it . But i beleive they can do it .
That was probably the overall strongest race till now 3 team under wr and the US was right on wr time with Townley 4 team under wr probably unheard without suits
True story. Can’t remember to have seen a race in which 3 teams – out of 8 – had swam below WR. Amazing.
Nobody was expecting that! Amazing performance!
Held totally missed his wall at the 100 killed his momentum. probably could have been a few tenths faster if he hit it.