France & Turkey Bump Austria & South Korea from Olympics in Women’s 800 Free Relay

2024 WORLD AQUATIC CHAMPIONSHIPS

• February 11th – February 18th, 2024
• Doha, Qatar
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Turkey and France cemented spots to race at the Olympic Games in the women’s 800 free relay on Thursday via their preliminary swims at the 2024 World Championships in Doha, Qatar.

The French women booked their ticket via a 9th-place finish in 7:59.27 thanks to a relay of Lucile Tessariol (1:59.22), Assia Touati (2:00.03), Oceane Carnez (1:59.27), and Giulia Rossi-Bene (2:00.36).

France hasn’t entered a relay in this race at either of the last two World Championship meets, though they finished 7th at the Olympics in 2021. A very young relay, Tessariol is 20, Carnez is 21, and Rossi-Bene is only 17. Touati is the veteran of the group at 28.

If they decide to swim the race at the home Olympics, they do have Charlotte Bonnet, who has been as fast as 1:54 but more recently was 1:56.47 in 2022, to sub into the relay.

The French have now qualified for every relay in which Olympic qualifying has been completed ahead of a home Olympic Games. They swam only 5 of 7 relays at the 2021 Olympics.

Turkey, meanwhile, blew-away the 8:10 that they went in Worlds prelims last year for last place, dropping down to an 8:05.21. That relay included Ela Naz Ozdemir (2:00.52), Gizen Guvenc (2:01.04), Merve Tuncel (2:02.26), and Ecem Donmez (2:01.39). That’s another very young relay, including a 17-year-old Ozdemir and a 19-year-old Tuncel.

The teen Ozdemir was responsible for a big chunk of this drop – her sptli was 3.4 seconds faster than the one she swam at Worlds last year.

Their improvements mean odd-team-out for South Korea and Austria, who become the first and second alternates. Both tried to improve their times on Thursday morning in prelims, but they were both a few tenths slower.

RELAY SELECTION PROCEDURE (IN BRIEF)

The top 3 finishing relays from the 2023 World Championships automatically qualified. The next 13 slots come from the best times among the combination of heats and finals at the 2023 and 2024 World Championships.

Because all of the finalists for 2024 Worlds are in the top 16 relay, the finals tonight won’t impact selections (though it may impact seedings). That means the field is set, pending countries declining their selections.

Their is no host country automatic allocation for the Olympics and France is already qualified thanks to their time from 2023 Worlds. Unlike in past years, there is no “free-for-all” best times in the qualifying period to worry about, so the field should be set at this point, with the exception of any scratches.

The Field – Women’s 800 Free Relay