2021 LEN EUROPEAN AQUATICS CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Swimming: Monday, May 17th – Sunday, May 23rd
- Budapest, Hungary
- Prelims at 10:00 am local/Finals at 6:00 pm local
- Event Site
- Entry List
- Live Stream
Just as the British women’s 400m free relay squad broke the national record in their race on night 1 of these European Championships, the men’s squad of Tom Dean, Matt Richards, James Guy and Duncan Scott came through with a record of their own.
Trailing in 4th and 3rd position for most of the race, the boys from Britain surged toward the end to overtake Italy by just .31 for runners-up. Russia claimed the gold in a new championships record of 3:10.41, but the British squad’s time of 3:11.56 managed to sliced .06 off of the previous national mark that’s been on the books since the supersuit era of 2009.
The previous British national record was comprised of the following splits:
Adam Brown (49.01)
Simon Burnett (47.57)
Liam Tancock (47.74)
Ross Davenport (47.30)
Tonight here in Budapest, versatile Dean led-off in 48.32 followed by newly-named teenaged Olympian Richards’ 2nd leg of 48.13. Guy produced a solid result of 47.92 to gain on Italy, while Scott sealed the deal in a wicked-quick anchor of 47.19. With their runner-up result here, the British men earned just their 2nd medal ever in this 400m free relay at a European Championships.
The nation of Russia still leads the nations for the most 400m free relay medals ever for the men in 11 gold and 20 total at the European Championships.
May be an unpopular opinion but I don’t feel Guy deserves to be on that relay
Huh? He had the best split this morning and split 47.9, better than Richards. And he’s unrested.
Whittle and J Litchfield aren’t gonna go sub 48. He was given a chance this morning and he took it.
Out of curiosity, on what basis?
Olympic medal could be on the cards as well as likely medals in 4×2 and 4×1 medley.
They’re untapered for this meet and did a 3:11.56. So with rest they can definitely go under 3:11 and get a bronze.
Dean 48 low
Richards 47 high
Guy 47 high
Scott 47 low/46 high
No one is getting close to USA and Russia in this event tho.
Bronze is a 4 way tossup imo. Hard to split GBR/AUS/ITA/BRA. Perhaps the Aussies will find a few at their trials, if not it’ll be a huge scrap. Hungary the darkhorse imo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPzyjqygA5g&t=1s
Budapest has a fast pool
Might be a bit of an exaggeration but it feels like everyone is splitting 47 low on the anchor leg nowadays.
Psh Phelps was doing that in 2012.
Nathan Adrian did it for years. You had guys like fabien gilot who’d go 48.5 individually then like 46.9 on relays.
What the hell happened to France’s 4×100? They used to have Bernard, Bousquet, Gilot, Leveaux, Stravius, Agnel, Metella… so many absolute studs. Now nothing.