Americans End Night 1 Of World Junior C’ships With 4×100 Free WJR

7TH FINA WORLD JUNIOR SWIMMING CHAMPIONSHIPS 2019

• Duna Arena, Budapest (Hungary)
• Pool swimming: Tuesday, August 20 – Sunday, August 25, 2019
• Heats 9:30am GMT+2 (3:30 am EDT / 12:30 am PDT)/ Semifinals and Finals 5:30pm GMT+2 (11:30am EDT / 8:30am PDT)
• 50-meter (LCM) course
• Meet site
• Entries book
• FinaTV Live Stream (subscription required)
• Live results

Night 1 of the 2019 World Junior Championships saw 2 World Junior Records bite the dust before the session was through, first with Alba Vazquez’s 400m IM WJR and then with the United States taking down the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay mark.

In the latter event, the top 3 teams all dipped under the previous World Junior Record in the men’s 4x100m freestyle relay, a mark which stood at the 3:16.96 clocked by the Australian foursome of Luke Percy, Regan Leong, Blake Jones, and Mack Horton back in 2013. Splits for the former record holders included the following:

Luke Percy (49.14) 
Regan Leong (49.11)
Blake Jones (49.38)
Mack Horton (49.33)

Flash forward to tonight, however, and the combination of Jake Magahey, Luca Urlando, Adam Chaney and Carson Foster put the stars n’ stripes on top, giving the U.S. the gold in a scorching 3:15.80. That knocked almost a full second off of the previous mark, with the composition of the following splits:

Jake Magahey (49.51)
Luca Urlando (48.73)
Adam Chaney (48.64)
Carson Foster (48.92)

Urlando is the only holdover from the morning heats, where he registered an anchor of 48.61. Tonight the teen was only a hair slower in 48.73, with Chaney nailing the fastest split for the Americans of 48.64.

The quickset split of the entire field overall came in the form of Andrei Minakov‘s red-hot anchor of 47.82 on the Russian’s relay. That was almost enough to put the Americans’ gold at risk, with the Russians finishing in 3:16.26.

The Italians also put up a fight with a collective effort of 3:16.29, with the quickest leg coming from Thomas Ceccon in 48.59 after the teen already raced the 100m back earlier in the session.