There was an empty lane among the heats of the mixed 400 freestyle relay in Kazan this morning, as the Australian team made the somewhat controversial decision to simply not swim the event. Aussie Head Coach Jacco Verhaeren quite bluntly stated that mixed gender relays are “not a high priority.”
As no mixed gender relay will be an Olympic event, the reasoning may sound legit to some, but maddening to others, as Team Australia has several viable candidates for the relay and are removing themselves from another potential gold medal win. Those against the scratch decision remind Australia the team had no problem entering athletes in the 50m stroke events, as well as the women’s 1500m free and men’s 800m free events, all of which are also non-Olympic races.
After yesterday’s finals session, Team Australia sees itself situated in a three-way tie for most golds with the United States and Great Britain, which makes every win even that much more important. This year’s 100m freestyle champion, Bronte Campbell, and sister, bronze medalist Cate Campbell, as well as men’s silver medalist Cameron McEvoy are weapons at Australia’s disposal that could have wreaked havoc on the mixed relay field, including the United States.
Says Verhaeren, “Whatever you think of it, we want to maintain our focus on what’s important and we consider Olympic events more than mixed relays”. His statement continued, “You have to make choices. In high performance this is the best thing to do. It’s not a high priority.” (Reuters)
With C. Campbell swimming in the women’s individual 50m freestyle heats and semis today, as an example, Verhaeren defended his decision saying, “There are too many freestylers still in competition and in the medley relays and we are focused on them. You don’t want to race a relay with your second tier. We considered it, if it was necessary for experience, but that is not the case here.” (Reuters)
This morning’s heats, without Australia, saw the United States claim the top seed, with its foursome of Conor Dwyer, Ryan Lochte, Margo Geer and Abbey Weitzeil registering a time of in a time of 3:24.51. They led second place Russia by almost half a second to land lane 4 for tonight’s final.
They could have had a perfectly nice medal of some sort by going with Mel Wright, Emma McKeon, Kyle Chalmers and Matt Abood. Shame that Chalmers only gets one swim at Worlds since I think more experience here would help him for Rio, provided he’s still in the sport next year.
Chalmers might get the run in the 4xMED heats; its either he or Abood as you couldn’t trust D’Orsogna let alone Delaney in the kid’s paddling pool ! McKeon’s spent a fair bit of petrol at these championships and I can see why they look to rest her. Wright didn’t swim the 4×200 so there may be something wrong there. Wilson – yes …but struggling to find another who hasn’t “other commitments” (Seebohm) or swimming badly
There are very defensible reasons FOR them to have swam this race …. and equally defensible reasons not to.