Pereira Out of 400 IM; Brazilian Arrival Set for Saturday

Brazil’s Thiago Pereira is the defending Olympic silver medalist in the 400 IM. Even without gold medalist Ryan Lochte, or 4th-place finisher Michael Phelps, swimming the race, the temptation of a possible medal wasn’t enough to lure him back in.

He has been in-and-out of this race ever since London, first declaring that he was done with it, then swimming it at Maria Lenk and qualifying for the World Championship team in the race, Pereira confirmed to Globoesporte that he would definitely not be swimming the 400 IM at the World Championships. With his focus this year relying largely in the shorter distances, and this scratch, his chances of doing well in the 200 IM look fairly high.

So we know the top two finishers in this race are out, Lochte and Pereira, as is 4th-place finisher Michael Phelps. 6th-place finisher Yuya Horihata from Japan isn’t swimming at this year’s meet, meaning that a bare-minimum of half of the finalist from the Olympics won’t return a year later.

This is still an incredibly interesting final with how much youth is involved. That includes Japan’s Kosuke Hagino, who was the bronze medalist last year and is swimming leaps-and-bounds faster this season; South Africa’s Chad le Clos who now has the confidence of the 200 fly Olympic gold behind him; and young American Chase Kalisz, who had his big breakthrough at this year’s USA Swimming National Championships.

In other news out of Brazil, the majority of the team is preparing to depart for Barcelona. They will depart late Friday and arrive straight to Barcelona at around 5 PM local time on Saturday. The exceptions are Felipe Lima, Marcelo Chierighini, the two American-based swimmers, and World Record holder Cesar Cielo, who stayed in Europe after the French Open a few weeks ago. They will be arriving separately.

A reminder of the full Brazilian roster: 

Women: Alessandra Marchioro, Travalon Beatriz, Carolina Bilich, Daynara Paula, Etienne Medeiros, Gracielle Herrmann, Jessica Knight, Joanna Maranhao, Larissa Oliveira, Manuella Lyrio,

Men: Cesar Cielo, Daniel Orzechowski, Felipe Lima, Fernando Ernesto Santos, Henrique Rodrigues, Joao de Lucca, Joao Luiz Gomes Junior, Leonardo de Deus, Marcelo Chierighini, Nicholas Santos, Nicolas Oliveira, Thiago Pereira and Vinicius Waked