The ‘Jason Lezak’ Relay Is Now the Oldest World Record in Swimming

Irish swimmer Daniel Wiffen broke the World Record in the 800 short course meters freestyle on Sunday to close the 2023 European Short Course Championship.

All World Records create lots of new histories, but this one checked a number of big boxes. It was the first World Record set by an Irish swimmer.

The World Record that it broke, Grant Hackett’s, was set on July 20, 2008, and at 5,621 days, was the oldest FINA/World Aquatics World Record still on the books.

So that begs the question – what is the new oldest World Record?

That honor now belongs to the US Men’s 400 Free Relay World Record of 3:08.24, which was set on August 11, 2008. That record, the famous “Jason Lezak anchor” relay, is 5,599 days old. Besides Lezak, that relay included Michael Phelps, Garrett Weber-Gale, and Cullen Jones.

That relay averaged 47.06s, and the French team that was beat is the second-fastest relay in history. The best result since that race is a 3:08.97 done by the Americans at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics (in 2021), where Caeleb Dressel, Blake Pieroni, Bowen Becker, and Zach Apple won gold. Even with a wild 46.69 anchor from Apple and a 47.26 leadoff from Dressel, they were still off the World Record about two-tenths per second.

This is the second time this year that the “oldest World Record on the books” has been broken ,though the last one was a bit different. At the World Championships in July, French swimmer Leon Marchand broke Michael Phelps’ 400 IM World Record, knocking over a second off a record that Phelps held for 7,642 days. His most recent WR performance in that swim, though, was about a month younger than Hackett’s

Other Oldest World Records:

• The oldest individual World Record is Paul Biedermann’s LCM 400 free time of 3:40.07, done on July 26, 2009 (5,250 days). Next on that list is his LCM 200 free done two days later (5,248 days).
• The oldest women’s World Record is Liu Zige’s 2:01.81 in the 200 meter fly from October 21, 2009 (5,163 days).
• Paul Biedermann also has the oldest individual Short Course Meters Record on the books. On November 15, 2009, he swam 1:39.37 in the 200 free (5,138 days). The oldest Short Course Meters Record of any kind is the men’s 200 free relay, which was set by France on December 14, 2008 (5,474 days).
• The oldest women’s short course record is Therese Alshammar’s 24.38 in the 50 fly, done on November 22, 2009 (5,131) – a record that somehow survived even when Sarah Sjostrom‘s long course record of 24.43 is only .05 seconds behind.
• The oldest women’s relay record on the list is from July 28, 2019 – the women’s 400 long course meter medley relay World Record is just 1,596 days old. That was set by Americans Regan Smith, Lily King, Kelsi Dahlia, and Simone Manuel.

See the full document here.

Oldest World Records in Swimming

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