The Relay Breakdown: Women’s 4x200m Freestyle

2025 U.S. NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIPS

• Tuesday, June 3 – Saturday, June 7, 2025
• Indianapolis, Indiana
• Indiana University Natatorium
• LCM (50 meters)
• World Championship Selection Criteria
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Meet Central
• Psych Sheets
• Live Results

WOMEN’S 200 Freestyle – Final

• World Record: 1:52.23 – Ariarne Titmus, AUS  (2024)
• American Record: 1:53.61 – Allison Schmitt (2012)
• U.S. Open Record: 1:54.13 – Summer McIntosh, CAN (2023)
• 2024 U.S. Olympic Trials Winner: Katie Ledecky – 1:55.22
• World Aquatics ‘A’ Cut: 1:58.23

Results:

1. Claire Weinstein (SAND) – 1:54.92
2. Katie Ledecky (GSC) – 1:55.26
3. Torri Huske (AAC) – 1:55.71
4. Anna Peplowski (ISC)/Erin Gemmell (TXLA) – 1:55.82
5. –
6. Bella Sims (SAND) – 1:57.18
7. Simone Manuel (TXLA) – 1:57.44
8. Isabel Ivey (GSC) – 1:58.05

Five women broke 1:56 tonight, as Claire Weinstein out-touched Katie Ledecky for the second time in three years. Torri Huske was out fast through 150, and managed to set a huge best time as she skipped the 1:56s entirely.

With Ariarne Titmus sitting out Worlds this season and Mollie O’Callaghan nursing a slight knee injury, they could well be the favourites to reclaim their World crown from 2022.

The top four from tonight will be guaranteed a spot, whilst fifth and sixth will need to wait to see how the team shapes up elsewhere.

So, what does all this mean for Team USA’s 4×200 free relay this summer?

The Past Is History, the Future Is a Mystery?

Last year’s Trials were only the third-fastest ever – the first one we’ve seen so far that was not the fastest. The 200 free add-ups in 2016 and 2023 were faster, although their fastest two relay times have come in 2021 and 2024.

Here was what the gaps looked like between the add-up from the top four at Nationals and the relay times swum later that summer since 2000.

We love to predict how relays will perform before a major summer meet. There are almost no other real opportunities for a top-tier long course relay team to compete, so there’s limited data to go off.

Based on the U.S. Nationals results we’ve built a rough model to predict the final time for the American 4×100 free relay this summer. To calculate this we’ve considered the National Championship results (top four), previous history of the drops from Nationals to the relay in the summer, and the raw times themselves.

The past four years look something like this:

*This defines the upper and lower limits of a range in which we would be 90% sure that the result would fall – if this was raced 100 times, in 90 of those we’d expect a time in this range.

First things first, the model does have some limitations. It is only intended as a ballpark figure and the 90% and 50% confidence bands are too confident, especially for the last few years where the actual drops have ranged anywhere from 0.88 seconds to 2.92 seconds.

Overall though, we’re not looking for this to give us an absolute relay time to hold ourselves to for the summer – just a range which we (or you) can debate. Without further ado, here are all the numbers from this year’s trials you need to worry about.

The Numbers

Fastest three flat-start times of the top-six:

Fastest senior international three relay splits of the top six:

Fastest flat-start add-up:

Fastest flat start + relay split add-up:

Katie Ledecky is unlikely to be at 1:53 flat start pace, and Bella Sims was a little off her 1:55-mid best from 2022, so these are not wholly representative. However, the relays have seemed to step up big over the last Olympic quad, so potentially a Sub-7:40 is not out of the question

As a final look ahead, here are the U.S. Nationals/Trials to summer relay drops since 2000 based on location. The circles get darker as the year gets later, and any hollow circles indicate a negative drop – that is, an increase.