Relay Lineups: Efimova/King Confirmed Breaststroke Medley Relay Prelims Legs | SwimSwam

By Nick Pecoraro on SwimSwam

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)
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Both of the women’s and men’s 4×100 medley relay preliminary events will take place for the seventh and last evening prelims session of Tokyo 2020. Both genders will showcase two heats of eight relays each, making it 16 countries vying for the Olympic final spots.

Most notably, veteran swimmers Yulia Efimova of the ROC and Lilly King of the USA have been placed on the prelims 400 medley relays for their squads. During the individual 100 breast final, teen Lydia Jacoby of the USA topped the field while Russian teen Evgeniia Chikunova of the ROC placed 4th, both their first Olympic finals. King settled for the bronze medal while Efimova finished directly behind Chikunova in 5th.

For Team Italy, Arianna Castiglioni will swim the breaststroke leg. During the individual 100 breast, teenager Benedetta Pilato was disqualified following prelims, however, Martina Carraro advanced all the way to the final.

While Penny Oleksiak will rest during this preliminaries round and be subbed with Kayla Sanchez this morning, Sarah Sjostrom will anchor the Swedish 400 medley relay twice, with a sleep in Tokyo separating the swims. Sjostrom has yet to earn a medal during these Games, however, will have swum the 100 free at least four times by the end of day seven’s events. Sjostrom will swim the women’s 100 free final to kick off the morning finals session in Tokyo, her fourth 100 free.

Switching over to the men’s side, Team Great Britain will use Duncan Scott on the anchor free leg during prelims while Team Australia will utilize Kyle Chalmers for both rounds of this relay. Brit Adam Peaty will rest this prelims session and have teamamte James Wilby swim the breast leg.

For the Russian Olympic Committee (ROC), Grigory Tarasevich is slated to swim back, Anton Chupkov on the breast, Mikhail Vekovishchev on the fly, and Vladislav Grinev on the free. The powerhouse team is currently resting fly ace Kristof Milak for this relay as well as fly/free sprinters Andrei Minakov and Kliment Kolesnikov, 50 freestyler Vlad Morozov, and double back champion Evgeny Rylov.

Then for the USA men, Wave II Trials runner-ups Hunter Armstrong, Andrew Wilson, and Tom Shields will be joined by Blake Pieroni during this relay’s round. Pieroni was a member of the winning 4×100 free relay earlier in the meet.

Women’s 400 Medley Relay Line-Ups

Heat One

1. South Africa (Venter, Schoenmaker, Gallagher, Canny)

2. Japan (Konishi, Watanabe, Ikee, Igarashi)

3. Italy (Panziera, Castiglioni, di Liddo, Pellegrini)

4. Australia (Seebohm, Hodges, Throssell, O’Callaghan)

5. Great Britain (Wild, Vasey, Jones, Anderson)

6. China (Chen, Tang, Yu, Wu)

7. Germany (Riedemann, Elendt, Hopink, Bruhn)

8. Spain (Zamorano, Vall, Belmonte, Munoz)

Heat Two

1. Hong Kong (Wong, Yeung, Haughey, Cheng)

2. Netherlands (Toussaint, Schouten, de Waard, Heemskerk)

3. ROC (Fesikova, Efimova, Chimrova, Kameneva)

4. USA (White, King, Curzan, Brown)

5. Canada (Ruck, Pickrem, MacNeil, Sanchez)

6. Sweden (Coleman, S. Hansson, L. Hansson, Sjostrom)

7. Belarus (Shkurdai, Zmushka, Kuliashova, Karakouskaya)

Men’s 400 Medley Relay Line-Ups

Heat One

1. Canada (Thormeyer, Mastromatteo, Edwards, Kisil)

2. Poland (Stokowski, Kozakiewicz, Majerski, Kraska)

3. Australia (Larkin, Stubblety-Cook, Morgan, Chalmers)

4. USA (Armstrong, Wilson, Shields, Pieroni)

5. Italy (Ceccon, Martinenghi, Burdisso, Miressi)

6. China (Xu, Yan, Shun, He)

7. Belarus (Tsmyh, Shymanovich, Tsurkin, Machekin)

8. Hungary (Bohus, Takacs, Kos, Holoda)

Heat Two

1. Greece (Makrygiannis, Meretsolias, Vazaios, Christou)

2. France (Ndoye-Brouard, Viquerat, Marchand, Metella)

3. Japan (Irie, Mura, Mizunuma, Nakamura)

4. Great Britain (Greenbank, Wilby, Guy, Scott)

5. ROC (Tarasevich, Chupkov, Vekovishchev, Grinev)

6. Brazil (Guido, Lima, Lanza, Chierighini)

7. Germany (Ulrich, Matzerath, Kusch, Wierling)

8. Lithuania (Rapsys, Sidlauskas, Margevicius, Bilis)

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