Watch: Grevers-King-Dressel-Manuel Crush WR in Mixed Medley Relay (Race Video)

2017 FINA WORLD SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS

Twice in one day, Team USA produced the fastest quartet in history in the 4×100 medley relay. But the second time it was a different foursome. After Ryan Murphy, Kevin Cordes, Kelsi Worrell and Mallory Comerford (3:40.28) took nearly a 1.5-second chunk out of Great Britain’s 2015 mark in prelims, USA fielded the combination of Matt Grevers, Lilly King, Caeleb Dressel, and Simone Manuel in finals. This group absolutely crushed the hours-old world mark, touching in 3:38.56.

Watch their dominating performance, courtesy of NBC Sports, below:

Write-up by Karl Ortegon:

MIXED 4×100 MEDLEY RELAY – FINAL

  • World Record: USA, 3:40.29, 2017
  • Championship Record: USA, 3:40.29, 2017
  • Junior World Record: Russia, 3:45.85, 2015
  1. USA 3:38.56
  2. Australia 3:41.21
  3. Canada/China 3:41.25

Team USA dominated the field, putting together a 3:38.56 to take almost two seconds off of their world record from prelims, which had four completely separate swimmers. All four legs swam very well for the Americans, but it was Caeleb Dressel who unleashed a 49.92 split on the butterfly leg, the real difference maker for them. That’s an incredibly fast swim, and it’s nearly a full second better than his lifetime best.

Matt Grevers led off in 52.32, faster than his silver medal time, with Lilly King following in 1:04.15. Remarkably, she held her ground despite being the only female breaststroke leg in the field. Dressel gave way to Simone Manuel, who put together a 52.17, nearly an identical split to what she did on the end of the women’s gold medal 4×100 free relay.

The race for silver was a scramble, with Australia just getting ahead at 3:41.21. They had a nice 52.30 anchor leg from Bronte Campbell. Canada and China ended up tying for the bronze, and both teams had some impressive legs. Canada was led off by Kylie Masse at 58.22, another great time from her, and Penny Oleksiak put together a very strong 56.18 fly split, with Yuri Kisil anchoring in 47.71. Xu Jiayu led off in 52.37 for China, with Yan Zibei dropping a 58.98 on the breast.

GBR was out of medal range at 5th, though they were just tenths back at 3:41.56. They had a fantastic middle grouping with Adam Peaty (57.12) and James Guy (50.51), but the rest of their relay wasn’t strong enough to push them to a medal.

In This Story

6
Leave a Reply

Subscribe
Notify of

6 Comments
newest
oldest most voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
IRO
7 years ago

Why does everyone hate on this event? That was so much fun to watch. Swimming never gets crazy like that!

xenon
7 years ago

This relay would have beaten the US men’s team at the 1984 Olympics. Rick Carey/Steve Lundquist/Pablo Morales/Rowdy Gaines went a 3:39.30 which was a new world record at the time.

G.I.N.A
Reply to  xenon
7 years ago

Great observation . It also took only 17 years for a single man to almost get that in 3.40. – thats only 3/4 of a generation . I should check the girls – it would be 1/2 a generation .

Technical improvements – pools depth & 10 lanes & u/water lighting / compression swimwear / hydrodynamic caps / goggles design & expanded vision / back start wedges & turns /breast head submergeable / breast dolphin kick .

swim4fun
Reply to  xenon
7 years ago

WOW! Discovery Channel should simulate this race, love to see Simone touch out Rowdy 🙂

Analyst
Reply to  swim4fun
7 years ago

Rowdy gets out-touched because he’s breathing to his right and can’t see Manuel

MG42
7 years ago

Would be awesome if you guys can post a video that is available in other countries too!

About Anne Lepesant

Anne Lepesant

Anne Lepesant is the mother of four daughters, all of whom swam in college. With an undergraduate degree from Princeton (where she was an all-Ivy tennis player) and an MBA from INSEAD, she worked for many years in the financial industry, both in France and the U.S. Anne is currently …

Read More »