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This “Shouts from the Stands” submission comes from Sam Blacker.
We’ve taken 100 freestyle splits from both the men’s freestyle and medley relays, and the mixed freestyle and medley relays this year, and unless specified, the times referred to are in long course. We’ve also not put this top 10 in any particular order – let us know in the comments what you think that order should be!
The relay swimmer is a concept that goes from Summer League right up to Olympic finals – someone who almost always swims their best on a relay, sometimes far beyond expectations of their individual times. But who’s been among the best in the world this year at this? Starting off we’ll look at the 100 free – so good it’s got its own relay, and the key anchor leg for medleys.
We’ll be balancing three criteria when looking at these swims – speed (compared both to PB/SB and the WR), consistency and relay achievement. For example, a 48-low swimmer with four splits in the year, one sub-47 and the other three at 48-high would be much less likely to make the cut than if they’d split all four at 47-mid – but that would be a more difficult decision if that 46-point had put their nation on the podium. Outliers can make or break a relay when it comes to the medals, but dependable relay success is built on swimmers who can be counted on to consistently put down splits a little faster than their flat start best. Stars are those that can do that and drop a lightning-fast split once in a while.
Think of Duncan Scott’s 46.14 from 2019. His next quickest split is a 46.92 from 2021 Europeans – still a top 50 split all-time, but nearly eight-tenths of a second slower – and he then has a cluster of 47.0s and 47.1s. If you’re counting on a single swimmer swimming out of their skin for your relay success, you’ll miss more often than you hit. That doesn’t make those swimmers who can sometimes step up with a sub-47 split less valuable (cough *Kyle Chalmers* cough), but the ideal relay swimmer is one who can reliably hit a relay split half a second or so quicker than their flat start time. With that in mind, we’ll take a look at the top relay swimmers this year that you would want in your fantasy team (if such a thing existed) – they’ve got an extremely high floor, and you can depend on them delivering when it counts. Let’s kick it off with some honorable mentions.
HM – David Popovici
The main reason Popovici doesn’t quite make the cut here isn’t really his fault – Romania’s relays, whilst competitive for finals at European level, aren’t close to the business end when it comes to major competitions. He also normally leads off, denying him the opportunity to throw down a serious relay split. Romania didn’t qualify any relays for the Olympics, so the only relay splits Popovici has this year come from the European Championships in June – but boy did he make an impact there. In the freestyle relay final, he led off the National Record setting relay in 47.22 – quick, but slower than he swam individually, and he’s been leading off relays in a 47-low since his junior days. However, they mixed it up in the heats and had Popovici anchor, which he did in a 46.66; the 11th fastest textile split ever, and 3rd fastest this year. He split 23.94 coming home on this split, only 1.22 seconds slower than his first 50. To our knowledge, no one else has ever split under 24 for their second 50 on a long course 100 free, so we’ll just leave that there. 23.94.
HM – Kaique Alves
Alves only swam a single international-level relay split in 2024, but it was a bit of a doozy. Coming into Short Course Worlds with a PB of 47.10 from the Jose Finkel Trophy in August, he dropped four-tenths when leading of Brazil’s prelim 4x100m Free relay in a 46.69. Shifting to the third leg for the final, he threw down a 45.82, the ninth-fastest flying split in the field, sitting behind a group made up of World and Olympic medallists (either on this relay or in the individual 100m free) and the former long course World Junior record holder. Any SCM split under 46 is seriously fast, and there has never been a 4×100 relay that wouldn’t have been improved by this split – for someone who came into the meet without an individual swim and with a PB that wouldn’t have made semis in the individual event, that’s a pretty impressive result.
HM – Shane Ryan
Ryan swam one relay leg, split a 47.21 that is well over a second quicker than his flat start best, and helped Ireland to break their national record at the Olympics by eight-tenths of a second. Not bad for someone who’s made their name as a sprint backstroker, has a PB of 48.39, and whose fastest split prior to Paris was 48.59. Oh, and he now sits just outside the top 50 performers ever. Ryan has previously swum the backstroke split on medley relays for Ireland, but with Conor Ferguson available and given that he’s broken the National Record on the long- and short course 100 free this year, we might see him swim this more often.
HM – Jack Alexy
Alexy had markedly different experiences with relays at the two major championships he competed at this year. In Paris he was a bit off his PBs throughout the meet, leading off the men’s freestyle relay in 47.6 and anchoring the heats medley relay in 47.4. This was only a tenth quicker than he’d swum individually, and he wasn’t on the team for the final. Come Short Course Worlds in December however, he put together a masterclass of relay swimming. He started off with a bang, breaking the Championship and American records with a 45.05, previously held by Kyle Chalmers and Caeleb Dressel (jointly with Nathan Adrian) respectively, and carried on in the same vein with 44-mid splits on the mixed and men’s medley relays. Those are the 2nd and 3rd fastest splits in history, and he almost made the rarely used tactic of a male anchor on the mixed medley work out – despite a 23.4 backend split he ended up touching just eight one-hundredths behind the anchor for Neutral Athletes B (Russia). Those relay swims were comfortably quicker than his flat start times, and his regularity across those swims in Budapest made him the most reliable anchor leg there. His inconsistency in Paris just about keeps him off the list – his one split was four-tenths slower than his PB, and Hunter Armstrong was preferred for that medley relay final despite a PB half a second slower. If he’d been just a little quicker there, he’d be a lock for the top 10.
TOP 10
From one American to another. Guiliano was a little quicker in Paris and a little slower in Budapest but makes the top 10 by dint of slightly slower PBs and ranking just a bit more consistent overall than Alexy this year. His one relay split in Paris came in the 4×100 free final, where his 47.33 helped reel in and overtake China – most of the that coming on the first 50, where he rocketed out to a 21.70. Although slightly slower than his PB of 47.25 from the U.S. Olympic Trials, it was four-tenths quicker than he went individually, and two-thirds of a second quicker than his time in the individual final. Come Budapest he was put straight to finals in the men’s 4×100 free, where he contributed a 45.42 to anchor them to a new world record by over a second, and then closed off the meet by splitting a 44.99 to bring home the heats medley relay. Again, both of these swims were faster than his individual time of 45.51, and that 44.99 split ranks him as one of only 11 men to split under 45. He does go out very quickly in his relay swims, 21.1 and 21.0 at Short Course Worlds to go with his 21.7 from Paris, but he still backed them up enough to have the 3rd, 3rd and 4th fastest splits in each respective event.
One of the more unheralded members of Italy’s successful 4×100 free relay over the last few years, Frigo swam their fastest split at both the Olympics and Short Course World championships this year. His split of 47.06 in Paris was the third fastest in the field and is well over a second quicker than his flat start best of 48.25 from the 2024 Worlds in Doha. Interestingly, while he was only a tenth of a second slower on the back end compared to his PB, he was over a second faster on the first 50 – his early speed didn’t cost him much at all.
A key reason for his place in the rankings has been Frigo’s reliability this year – three LCM splits of 48.0 or better (from a 48.2 pb) and SCM splits of 46.3 and 45.7 (from a 47.4 PB). He’s anchored silver medal-winning relays at both Long and Short Course Worlds, and the bronze medal-winning relay in Paris. While there’s been a fair amount of fluidity on this relay around the stalwarts of Alessandro Miressi and Thomas Ceccon, Frigo looking like a lock for the anchor leg speaks to his reliability. Italy has a strong tradition of quick anchor legs – Filippo Magnini, Christian Galenda and Alessandro Miressi have all split sub-47 and have 20 splits under 47.5 between them – and Frigo is looking like becoming part of that group.
Despite swimming at only one major championship this year, Chalmers makes the cut thanks to a 46.59 anchor leg to take the Aussies from 4th to silver in Paris. His season-best stands ‘only’ at 47.48, from the individual 100 final at the Olympics, so that relay split is nine-tenths faster, and one of the fastest in history. In fact, it’s the ninth-fastest split of all time and fifth-fastest in textile – and two of those ahead of him are his own. Whilst he was a little slower bringing home the medley relay in 47.35 at the end of the meet, it was still quicker than his flat start time. It’s difficult to overlook a split as quick as that first one though, especially when it takes you from off the podium to an Olympic medal.
An Olympic semi-finalist in 2021, Worlds semi-finalist in 2022 and 2023, World finalist in 2024, and an Olympic semi-finalist again in 2024, Barna has been around at the top of the men’s 100m freestyle for the last few years without necessarily being someone you might be aware of. For most of those competitions, he’s hovered around the 48-low/47-high mark, but at the European Championships in Belgrade this year he dropped his PB and Serbian Record down to 47.66, garnering him the bronze medal.
That time is quick, but it’s been relays where Barna has really stood out recently, and especially so this year. Splits of 47.8, 47.7, 47.6 at Worlds, 47.3, 47.0 and 46.8 at Europeans, and 47.4 at the Olympics showcase not just his speed but also his consistency – he’s swum faster on every relay split than he swam individually at that meet by at last 0.2. Although that Olympic split was a slight step back, his best flat start time there was only 48.3 – he still dropped nearly a second on the relay, outsplitting everyone in the heats other than Josh Liendo, Kyle Chalmers and Pan Zhanle; three world medallists in this event. That 46.8 from Europeans was particularly impressive – it’s the 5th fastest split this year, ranks in the top 50 all time, and took the Serbian team from 5th to 1st as they won gold and set a new National Record.
This selection is relatively simple – Pan has been hands-down quick on every relay he’s swum this year. Including lead-offs, he’s swum four relay legs under 47 seconds this year, culminating in that otherworldly 45.92 to anchor China to gold in the medley relay in Paris. That made him the first man ever under 46 and was over a second quicker than any other split in that race (next was Hunter Armstrong’s 47.19). Looking at his other relay legs, what really stands out is his dependability – 2 lead-offs and a prelims anchor all between 46.80 and 46.98. Relay lead-offs are notoriously difficult to get right, and most of the field tend to be off their best in the match-racing situation they turn into. Pan’s ability to hit 46.80 at Worlds (world record at the time) and then 46.92 at the Olympics (at the time an Olympic Record) leading off the freestyle relay is possibly one of the few aspects of his swimming that is still underrated.
Being able to count on a swimmer for a near-guaranteed 46-point split is huge – just look at what Kyle Chalmers has given Australia in terms of a get-out-of-jail-free card over the last 5 years. China has often struggled to put together the top-level freestylers needed to be competitive in the 4×100 free relay, but putting Pan with three solid if not spectacular swimmers would be enough to final anywhere – and adding another elite relay swimmer to that mix puts them well in the hunt for medals.
So, about that second elite relay swimmer – he’s already here. Bursting onto the scene with a 46.9 split in 2023, he’s thrown down consistently quick relay splits this year – two 47.4s on gold medal-winning relays in Doha, and a 47.6 on the relay in Paris that finished just off the podium. Wang has a PB of 47.89 from May 2023, but hasn’t been under 48 this year – and in Paris, his fastest flat start time was 48.61, nearly a full second slower than his relay split. Reliability on a top-drawer international relay, a pattern of swimming faster on relays than individually, and the ability to deliver his quickest splits in finals, all at the age of 19? He’s already a multiple world champion, but he and Pan are an incredibly strong springboard for China to build even further and cement themselves as one of the big guns in this event.
It may be somewhat surprising to see Hobson here given that he focuses on the 200m event at the international level and has a long course PB of 48.50, but he’s put down five very solid 100m splits this year. The first 3 came at the Doha World Champs, where he split 47.7, 47.6 and 48.2 – all quicker than his flat start best, and showcasing sprinting ability somewhat reminiscent of Blake Pieroni and Townley Haas.
His final two came at Short Course Worlds in December, where he posted splits of 45.4 in heats and 45.1 in the final, as the U.S. rocketed to a new world record. His more distance-oriented skills are noticeable in him coming back under 24 seconds, but his front-end speed was also right up there with the drop-dead sprinters (3rd fastest to 50 in the final), and he outsplit noticeable names such as Chris Guiliano and Gui Caribe. For someone who probably still styles themselves as a 200/400 swimmer, it’s seriously impressive to more than hold his own against the 50/100 guys in their own domain.
Masiuk earns his spot mainly due to his performance at Short Course Worlds, being an integral part of two top 4 relays. He split 45.64 on the bronze-medal-winning Freestyle relay in Budapest, 4th fastest in the field, and followed that up with a 45.85 on the medley relay. These are not only elite freestyle splits, not far behind individual finalists like Alessandro Miressi and Egor Kornev, but also well below his 2022 PB. Primarily a backstroker, he’s arguably swum his best this year in freestyle on relays and delivered his best on those in major finals. He also split 48.04 at Europeans in June to help Poland secure a silver medal there – six-tenths quicker than his long course PB. As with Ryan, the availability of a second world-class backstroker in Kacper Stokowski may shift him to anchor the medley more often in the future, which may lead to even more Polish relay success.
Varjasi makes the cut thanks to his performance in 4 finals this year, culminating in anchoring Germany to a new national record in Paris. Having dropped his PB down to 48.45 at the German Trials in April, he then split 48.15, 48.20 and 48.26 across three finals at Europeans (where he was only 48.7 individually), winning bronze in the mixed freestyle relay. The best was to come in Paris though, where he split 47.92 to bring home that record-setting relay. He stepped up in every single final, was consistently quicker than his flat-start best and contributed to major national successes – what more could you ask for?
Armstrong started the year already a pretty good 100 freestyler and was a heats-only swimmer at worlds back in 2022, but he has become an integral part of the U.S. men’s relays this year. He started off by dropping his PB down from 48.25 to 47.83 leading off the bronze medal-winning mixed freestyle relay in Doha, but it wasn’t until Paris that he truly showed out. There, he threw down a 46.75 split in the final of the 4x100m free relay, along with a 47.19 anchoring the medley and a 47.5 in the freestyle relay heats.
All three of these are quicker than his flat start best of 47.59, but it was his sub-47 split that really made him stand out. It was the 3rd quickest split of the year, the 29th quickest of all time, and was the leg that separated the U.S. from the rest of the field in that final – and won the American men one of only the two golds that they collected in Paris. Remarkably, he managed this with a pedestrian takeover time of 0.37: if he’d dropped that down even to 0.2 this would have been the ninth-quickest split ever.
Good to see Duncan Scott mentioned. He is the only British to make a 100m final since another Scot, Bobby MacGregor in 1968.
His freestyle legs have been amazing
45.92
Nice work! This is a well written article.
Armstrong is number 1?
Going by the absence of numbers I guess It’s unordered. Pan should’ve been #1 in an ordered list but it wouldn’t surprise me to see an American shoehorned into the top spot just cos.
Armstrong was very fast (surprisingly fast) on that relay but the US would have won that event either way and he wasn’t even fastest in the race, so there is 0 reason to put him in first place. But it does look like it’s an unordered list, in which case the reason his swim was put at the end is probably it being the most memorable relay swim for the American fans, who are a majority on this site.
An American male swimmer always manages to get relay swimmer of the meet in these things even if their team doesn’t win and their swimmer doesn’t have the fastest split. Eg Alexy for sc worlds when it should have been Prigoda. MA at LC worlds in 2022 when Chalmers was way better.
Okay but Sam is British. He’s even got a .co.uk email address, so like British-British.
Yeah, no over-favouritism from me 😀 the ordering is actually pretty much random and I agree that Pan is #1 this year by a distance, but behind him I don’t think Armstrong is too far down. Bear in mind that his PB as of January was that 48.2 and he went 46.7 and 47.1 in Paris, second fastest in the field and winning medals in both events – I think that’s way beyond what anyone would have expected, even after going 47.5 at trials.
Does anyone know where I can find the actual stat list for these things? I’d love to be look at the list and be surprised by a lesser known swimmer making it up there
https://data.usaswimming.org/datahub/recordssearch/alltimetoprelaysplits
though you can’t filter by date
This one is great and is the best one I could find online too – annoyingly they only go to about the top 20 though. I think the most complete list that exists (for 100m free splits at least) is on my laptop currently, but there might be something on here about it soon!
One that would probably surprise you – Dominik Kozma, 46.72 on the Medley at 2017 worlds, which is 22nd all time – he has a PB of 48.26
(Actually 23rd)
He was a relay beast in 2017, really hyped himself up for the home crowd. His anchor split in the 4×100 free relay which got bronze was similarly fast.
That was actually Richard Bohus on the anchor for that relay, Kozma was leading off. Hungary had a good meet that year – can imagine that the Duna Arena is something else when it’s your home pool