Women’s 4×200 Free Relay: Who Is Getting Those Finals Spots?

2022 FINA WORLD AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS

• June 18-25, 2022 (pool swimming)
• Budapest, Hungary
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The preliminary heats of the women’s 4×200 free relay just concluded, and for the top four finishing teams of Australia, China, the United States, and Canada, big lineup decisions need to be made come time for finals.

United States

With Leah Smith and Katie Ledecky being locks for the finals, two more spots on this U.S. team were up for grabs. After seeing what went down in prelims, that first spot is most definitely going to Bella Sims now. The 17-year-old stepped up big time, clocking a split of 1:55.91 that was the fastest in the entire field. She’s improved significantly from when she was on the prelims of this relay in at the Olympics last year, where she led off nearly three seconds slower in a time of 1:58.59.

The second available spot on this finals relay will be much harder to decide. Aside from Sims, Hali Flickinger had the fastest split time out of all the members in this prelims relay. However, she has the finals of the 200 fly before this relay at night, which might leave her more fatigued than she was in the morning. Then there’s Claire Weinstein, who had the slowest split but the fastest personal best time of her teammates. Just two days ago, she finished tenth in the semifinals in a 1:56.94, which is over a second faster than what she went on this relay. If she’s able to match her individual time and her prelims race was just a fluke, she’s most definitely the strongest choice. Finally, the U.S. had Alex Walsh, who led off this relay in a time faster than Weinstein went but slower than Flickinger. In a scenario where Flickinger is tired after her 200 fly and the U.S. coaches feel that Weinstein can’t match her PB, Walsh could be the option to go with.

Then there’s the question of whether Katie Ledecky will lead off or anchor this relay come time for finals. We are used to seeing Ledecky anchor in the past, but this year, the U.S. might need a different strategy. With a team that is weaker than it has been in the past, the best option might be to have Ledecky lead off so that the Americans will not be lagging too much behind in the beginning of the race. That way, the rest of the team will be able to build off of Ledecky’s lead. But then there’s the argument that Ledecky has historically been better anchoring. While she hasn’t gone sub-1:54 on a flat start since 2016, she has been near her fastest relay split time of 1:53.74 on three different occasions, the most recent one being when she anchored in 1:53.76 on the U.S. Olympic relay last year and pushed her team from bronze to silver medal position.

Canada

Canada can go with many options on this finals relay. If you look at the prelims results alone, the obvious choices to put alongside (most likely) Penny Oleksiak and Summer McIntosh  would be Mary-Sophie Harvey, who had the fastest prelims time, and Taylor Ruck, who had the second-fastest time and clocked a 1:56.80 in the individual 200 free on Monday. The Canadians also have Kayla Sanchez, who wasn’t used on the prelims team but has been 1:55-point on previous 4×200 relays. However, she does have the 100 free semifinal that comes before the relay.

McIntosh will also be swimming the 200 fly final before this race, but given that she’s over two seconds faster than any of the prelims splits, there’s enough room for error for her to be a guaranteed a finals swim. The fact that Sanchez wasn’t in prelims might suggest that they are resting her for finals and McIntosh won’t be used at all, which could potentially be a waste of a 1:54 split and seriously hurt Canada. So most likely, that won’t be the case. Oleksiak, on the other hand, was DQed from the individual 200 free semifinals, which could potentially be fuel for her to go faster on this relay. However, she also has to handle the double of the 100 free semis prior to the race.

Australia

Like many of the other teams, Australia will have to pick two out of their prelims swimmers to go along with their two fastest 200 freestylers in finals. Kiah Melverton makes a strong case for herself anchoring in 1:56.49, the second-fastest split of the field. In addition, she also has a lifetime best of 1:55.94 that’s faster than any of the other women on the Australian prelims squad.

Lani Pallister‘s 1:56.86 off a rolling start and Leah Neale‘s 1:57.03 flat start time are very similar, so it’s going to be difficult to choose between who’s getting on the finals relay out of the two. Pallister has been having a really good meet, having set best times in both the 400 and 1500, while Neale has the experience of being on Australia’s 4×200 free relay at the Olympics last summer.

After making poor lineup decisions that arguably cost them the gold medal in Tokyo, Australian coaches have a lot of pressure to get things right this time around especially after qualifying for finals as the top seed out of prelims.

China

With two members of China’s world-record setting relay (Li Bingjie and Zhang Yufei) not being at their strongest this meet, we might see some new faces on their finals relay today. That being said, China’s lineup looks to be easier to decide than the ones of their rivals. They will likely go with the individual 200 free gold and bronze medalists in Yang Junxuan and Tang Muhan, who were rested for finals. Then, on prelims, Lao Lihui and Ai Yanhan were the fastest two swimmers by far and have made a case to get a second swim.

While Zhang Yufei had an incredible turnaround from winning the 200 fly to splitting 1:55.6 on this relay last year, she probably won’t be in shape to do that this year, considering that she added over a second on her mixed medley fly leg right after swimming the 200 fly semifinals yesterday.