Russia wins first relay of WUGs in men’s 4×100 medley (Race video)

2015 WORLD UNIVERSITY GAMES

• July 4th-July 11th, 2015 (Saturday-Saturday)
• Gwangju, South Korea
• Prelims 8:30AM/Finals 7PM (local time)
• Prelims 7:30PM (day before)/Finals 6AM (U.S. Eastern Time)
• Day 7 Prelims Live Recap
• Full meet preview
• Results
• Live feed (finals only) 
• In the United States: ESPN3.com
• Twitter: @swimswamlive

Excerpt taken from Day Seven Finals Recap:

MEN’S 4X100 MEDLEY RELAY – FINAL

In another thrilling race, Russia won its only relay gold medal of this meet.  It’s not quite as easy to call this one an upset, as Russia did have the fastest time in prelims, but few fans would have predicted the USA would not earn a gold medal in either relay.

Japan’s Junya Hasegawa set the pace in the backstroke leg, touching in 54.18, and Japan stayed in first place through the breaststroke and fly legs, with Russia behind by .16 and the USA by .79 going into the freestyle.

Jack Conger of the USA had his second sub-48 split of the meet, anchoring in 47.95, but he ran out of room trying to run down Russian anchor Mikhail Polischchuk, with Russia winning 3:34.56 to 3:34.61.  Japan was another .21 behind the USA, finishing in 3:34.82.

Notably, Evgeny Koptelov of Russia, Matthew Josa of the USA, and Masayuki Umemoto of Japan all had 51-point splits on the fly leg.  Josa’s swim and Conger’s sub-48 anchor make it hard to argue that the US definitely would have been better off with Conger on fly and Seth Stubblefield on free, despite Conger having the 4th-fastest time in the 100 fly this year.

Australia placed 4th in a time of 3:36.12, highlighted by Justin James having the only other sub-48 freestyle leg of the event, a 47.98.  Craig Benson of Great Britain swam a field-leading 59.98 on the breaststroke leg en route to fifth-place time of 3:48.02

South Africa took sixth in 3:41.33, followed by Poland in 3:42.17.

France’s relay was disqualified, apparently for an early takeoff by Jordan Coelho on the fly leg.

Race video comes to us courtesy of Universiade 2015 on YouTube. You can find this video and more videos from swimming and other sports at the 2015 World University Games by following this link to the Universiade 2015 YouTube page.

Our full World University Games coverage is here, and the day 7 finals recap is here.