2020 Tokyo Summer Olympic Games
- When: Pool swimming: Saturday, July 24 – Sunday, August 1, 2021
- Open Water swimming: Wednesday, August 4 – Thursday, August 5, 2021
- Where: Olympic Aquatics Centre / Tokyo, Japan
- Heats: 7 PM / Semifinals & Finals: 10:30 AM (Local time)
- Full aquatics schedule
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- Live Results
- Day 5 Finals Heat Sheet
Women’s 4×200 Freestyle Relay
China stunned Australia, the top seed and runaway favorite in the women’s 4×200 free relay, from the opening bell. Yang Junxuan led off with the fastest first leg of 1:54.37, holding off Australia’s Ariarne Titmus (1:54.51), who a day earlier had won the gold medal in the 200 free with 1:53.50, breaking the Olympic Record that had been set by USA’s Allison Schmitt with her gold-medal performance (1:53.61) in 2012.
Titmus’ leadoff was the second-fastest, however, and kept Australia in the game with China. 14-year-old Summer McIntosh from Canada swam a very quick 1:55.74 leadoff, putting her team about .6 in front of the United States. The Americans opened with Schmitt (1:56.34) whose leadoff was about 1.7 seconds faster than the next wave of swimmers.
Lead-off Splits
| Swimmer | Country | Split |
| Yang Junxuan | China | 1:54.37 |
| Ariarne Titmus | Australia | 1:54.51 |
| Summer McIntosh | Canada | 1:55.74 |
| Allison Schmitt | United States | 1:56.34 |
| Charlotte Bonnet | France | 1:58.08 |
| Anna Egorova | Russian Olympic Committee | 1:58.22 |
| Isabel Gose | Germany | 1:58.30 |
| Zsuzsanna Jakabos | Hungary | 1:58.61 |
After their 1:54 leadoff, China produced three 1:55s. Tang Muhan (1:55.00) and Zhang Yufei (1:55.66), just an hour after winning the 200 fly gold medal in Olympic Record-breaking fashion, kept China out front through 600 meters. Li Bingjie finished in 1:55.30, the fifth-fastest time of the flying-start legs.
Katie Ledecky of the United States, who did not medal in the 200 free final on Wednesday morning, unleashed a monster 1:53.76 on the end of the American relay to power past Australia and secure the silver medal. Paige Madden (1:55.25) and Katie McLaughlin (1:55.38) also cranked out top-10 splits.
Canada’s Penny Oleksiak anchored with 1:55.14, the second-fastest final leg, after Ledecky. Australia’s Leah Neale came home on 1:55.85.
Flying Splits
| Swimmer | Position | Country | Split |
| Katie Ledecky | 4 | United States | 1:53.76 |
| Tang Muhan | 2 | China | 1:55.00 |
| Penny Oleksiak | 4 | Canada | 1:55.14 |
| Paige Madden | 2 | United States | 1:55.25 |
| Li Bingjie | 4 | China | 1:55.30 |
| Emma McKeon | 2 | Australia | 1:55.31 |
| Katie McLaughlin | 3 | United States | 1:55.38 |
| Madison Wilson | 3 | Australia | 1:55.62 |
| Zhang Yufei | 3 | China | 1:55.66 |
| Leah Neale | 4 | Australia | 1:55.85 |
| Kayla Sanchez | 3 | Canada | 1:56.59 |
| Rebecca Smith | 2 | Canada | 1:57.30 |
| Anastasia Guzhenkova | 4 | Russian Olympic Committee | 1:57.45 |
| Annika Bruhn | 4 | Germany | 1:57.71 |
| Ajna Kesely | 3 | HUN | 1:58.14 |
| Veronika Andrusenko | 3 | Russian Olympic Committee | 1:58.17 |
| Valeriia Salamatina | 2 | Russian Olympic Committee | 1:58.31 |
| Marie Pietruschka | 3 | Germany | 1:58.36 |
| Assia Touati | 2 | France | 1:58.82 |
| Leonie Marlen Kullmann | 2 | Germany | 1:59.19 |
| Laura Veres | 2 | HUN | 1:59.71 |
| Boglarka Kapas | 4 | HUN | 2:00.16 |
| Margaux Fabre | 4 | France | 2:00.39 |
| Lucile Tessariol | 3 | France | 2:00.86 |
satisfying race to watch for the US. The TYR cover up on AS’s suit for the post race interview looked weird, even though you could still see TYR through it.
I’m surprised they haven’t provided her a logoless one.
Fully agree with comments below in relation to the selection decisions. All I can say what were the coaches thinking. Australia made a number of monumental bad decisions. Questions need to be asked about why coaches made these decisions. Any one could identify immediately that these decision set these wonderful girls up for failure. The following questions need to be asked – as per below.
- why didn’t the coaches follow the tried and proven formula of resting the two fastest swimmers (Titmus and McKeon) and select the next four fastest (Wilson, Neale, O’Callaghan and Harris) for the heat with two fastest taking the final two spots in the final.
- why was Thoressel and Cook used in the heats
… Read more »It was blindingly obvious as soon as heat sheets were out. My heart sunk. Like what the hell….. plus Mollie’s face said it all. She knew too. She came 4th in 3 races I think at World juniors in 2019, and now has lost the opportunity to swim in finals and win gold.
Can anybody provide the link to the splits of this relay where the reaction times of swimmers are shown. The
https://olympics.com/tokyo-2020/olympic-games/en/results/swimming/results-women-s-4-x-200m-freestyle-relay-fnl-000100-.htm
shows incorrect reaction time of 4th leg for all teams. They just repeat the RT of first leg.
Thank you.
You’ve got Kayla Sanchez’s split wrong. It was 1:55:59
can someone enlighten me why rohan taylor approved that relay selection and order?
dear johan, i have similar question like you too
the worst decision at all
8 bronze medals
This was a coaches stuff up. But overall Australia is doing very very well. We have 5 gold with hopefully more to come. You’ll never listen but funding is not very high in Australia for swimming unless you are a previous gold medalist.
Lucky a swimmer that did what would have been faster than all but 2 flying starts last night (from a flat start) was watching.
We ( the Aussies on here)l saw it straight away, as soon as the heat sheets were released. Not sure how we knew it was playing with fire, but the coaches didn’t.
Arrogance.
Hadn’t considered the possibility Titmus and McKeon would both have bad swims.
If they had bad swims and we lost with our strong team it would suck but that happens.
We deliberately left about a second out of the pool, then lost by 0.96
The accrued fatigue for Ledecky and immediate fatigue for Zhang makes those the stand out splits for me.
The sheer guts of Zhang to take that 200 fly out at a WR pace that will always break you before you break it, knowing she had a 200 free an hour later. Incredible.
Swimming multiple races back to back takes its toll.
McKeon was off after swimming the 100 free semi final. The relay monster Oleksiak was also off her individual time, again after the 100 free semi.
Li Bingjie failed to progress from the 200 free heats with a 1:59, after winning bronze in the 400 earlier in the day, and in the same session missed the final in the 1500. But then with some more rest drops a 1:55 here.
Yang pulled out of the individual 100 to focus on this relay, and it payed off massively. Ditto Kayla Sanchez.
Similar story in the men’s 4×2. Three of GB’s four swimmers (Guy, Richards, Scott) sacrificed individual events… Read more »