Swimswam / Jeff Grace coverage of the men’s 4×100 medley relay at the 2013 FINA World Championships:
Before the event began it looked as though the American relay that consisted of Matt Grevers,Kevin Cordes, Ryan Lochte and Nathan Adrian would be a lock to win. Throughout the race and at the finish it looked like they had done what was expected of them, but that wasn’t the case, as officials disqualified the team due Cordes leaving early on a relay exchange.
After the race Adrian spoke to the press as reported by ESPN explaining that the mistake is a team mistake and that it shouldn’t fall on the shoulders of one individual, “A relay disqualification is not a particular individual’s fault,” said Nathan Adrian “It’s Team USA’s fault and it falls on all of our shoulders.”
“If us four ever step up again, we’re never going to have a disqualification, that’s for sure,” said Adrian. “It will really motivate him. I don’t doubt if in the next couple years we’re going to have the fastest breaststroker in the world swimming for Team USA. This could be a catalyst for that.”
With the Americans’ disqualified France took the gold. The team of Camille Lacourt, Giacomo Perez-Dortona, Jeremy Stravius and Fabien Gilot had a back and forth race with the Australians.
The team consisting of Ashley Delaney, Christian Sprenger, Tommaso D’Orsongna and James Magnussen were behind the French by 24 one-hundredths of a second going into the final 100 meters. Even with Magnussen, the 100 freestyle world champion, anchoring the relay they could not make up the difference losing to the French by 13 one-hundredths of a second.
France won the gold in a time of 3:31.51 followed by Australia who finished in a time of 3:31.64.
The Japanese team consisting of Ryosuke Irie, Kosuke Kitajima, Takuro Fujii and Shinri Shiohura finished third in a time of 3:32.26.
The Russians finished fourth in a time of 3:32.74, the Germans finished fifth in a time of 3:33.97, the Italians finished sixth in a time of 3:34.06 just ahead of Hungary that finished in seventh in a time of 3:34.09.
Trust me, it was never in question or of concern to the coaches as to who the breaststroker would be. That is a ridiculous comment and Cordes’ 59.3 split was an absolutely competitive and acceptable swim. Must we continue to talk about it. Move on and best of luck to those boys.
completely agree with u !!!! Cordes needs support in order to learn and uplift himself through that experience . And Even the Great Usa makes mistakes , Yes ! when u look at russian relays , they didn’t even earn a good gold for a long time in BIG BIG meets .
The 4x100m Free Relay and 4x100m Medley are disappointing. Instead of putting blames on the inexperience Cordes and Feigen, I’m rather upset with the choice of the Head Coach Bob Bowan, choosing Feigen over Berens and Cordes over someone having better performance at the World Champs!
Cordes qualified 1st in the 100m and 200m breastroke, the rest who qualified for breastroke were also rookies. Most top US breastrokers have retired or did not qualify for Worlds. Don’t think the coaches had much choice.
choosing feigen should have been good if they put him first and adrian anchor.
adrian is much faster anchor than flat start while feigen is much better flat start than relay start.
Love what Matt Grevers did by taking the credit, an established team leader taking the responsibility and the blame off of a young rookie, class act!
It’s a shame they got DQ because it really ended up being a blowout win, bigger than I remember in recent history. Nathan Adrian showed he is a great relay anchor and I’m glad the coaches went with him over an inexperienced Feigen. Awesome worlds meet overall!
Watch the replay. Cordes didn’t even start moving forward until after Matt’s arm had entered the water on his last stroke. Just unlucky that Grevers was in a bad spot and took his last stroke too far from the wall. He had a very long glide after his lunge, but there wasn’t anything he could do really about it. Definitely NOT Cordes’ fault. Like Matt said, it happens a lot. It’s not anyone’s fault. Just bad luck.
I agree, it takes two to make a great relay exchange. It’s Kevin’s job to get off the block, but Rowdy said Grevers was just a hair long on the finish and that’s what the margin was–a hair. .01 and he would have been ok. Even the best relay starters are only human, that’s the nature of the business. Captain Grevers showed true leadership by taking the blame off of his young teammate in the interview, class move by a class act, and that’s the key for a young guy like Cordes to putting a DQ behind you and moving forward.
All signs point to him being the future of American Breaststroke, and although his long course times aren’t quite… Read more »
what do you mean that his LCM times are not congruent with his SCY times?
His 200 LCM is already 2:08.34!
As impressive as that time is, I wouldn’t consider it quite as good as his 1:48 SCY 200 breast. If he continues to develop his long course I do think he could be in the 2:07s or lower.
Like I said yesterday, we need to give this dude a break. I’m sure he feels bad enough even without all this bashing from some fans. Yes, it was an unnecessary mistake, but like Cordes said – we can’t do anything about it now. Somehow I feel that Crocker’s decline began with that relay DQ and I wouldn’t like to see the same thing happening to Cordes.
poor Cordes. Can’t believe he had to do this interview right after the race. They all handled themselves with class and people should listen to the great Matt Grevers and realize that all of the blame should not be put on the kid. .01…
Great coverage by Swimswam, btw.
Naturally any relay swimmer learns you have to handle a DQ with some degree of grace. Throw a guy under the bus one time and you will be dealing the karma one day. At least this wasn’t the Olympics, when things really matter.