2022 FINA SHORT COURSE WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS
- Tuesday, December 13 to Sunday, December 18, 2022
- Melbourne Sports and Aquatics Centre, Melbourne, Australia
- SCM (25m)
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- Day 6 Finals Live Recap
A race for the ages: the men’s 400 medley relay final capped the most exciting Short Course World Championship meet in recent memory on Sunday evening in Melbourne, Australia.
Team Australia, Team USA, and Italy battled down to the wire. An all-time split from Australian anchor Kyle Chalmers dragged them back into a race against the Italians and Americans, who led most of the way.
But he wasn’t the only come-from-behind World Record swimmer in that race: Kieran Smith, primarily a middle-distance freestyler internationally, also had to chase down the Italian anchor. Not because Alessandro Miressi, who was 3rd in the individual 100 free, was ahead when he hit the water, but because Miressi got off the blocks like a shot. He actually had a dreadful reaction time (.56 seconds), but his first 75 split of 33.19 pulled him well ahead of the American Smith. Smith wasn’t done, though, and he outsplit Miressi by three-tenths over the final 25 meters to get his hand on the wall with Chalmers.
Chalmers’ closing 25 and 50 splits were even wilder.
Freestyle leg split comparisons:
| 25m | 50m | 75m | 100m | |
| Chalmers | 9.86 | 11.36 (21.22) | 11.65 (32.87) | 11.76 (44.63) |
| Miressi | 10.06 | 11.35 (21.41) | 11.78 (33.19) | 12.37 (45.56) |
| Smith | 10.09 | 11.69 (21.78) | 12.13 (33.91) | 12.04 (45.95) |
Smith swam the race like a University of Florida middle-distance swimmer swims the 100 free, and it worked.
Chalmers’ swim is, we believe, the fastest 100 short course meter freestyle split in history. Cesar Cielo split 44.67 at the 2014 Short Course World Championships and Matt Grevers split 44.68 at the 2009 Duel in the Pool.
Flourish comparison:
Race Video:
Fastest Splits on Each Leg of the Relay
Backstroke:
| Back | Country | Split |
| Ryan Murphy | USA | 48.96 |
| Isaac Cooper | Australia | 49.46 |
| Lorenzo Mora | Italy | 49.48 |
| Ryosuke Irie | Japan | 49.98 |
| Finlay Knox | Canada | 50.46 |
| Tomas Franta | Czech Republic | 50.48 |
| Ole Braunschweig | Germany | 50.68 |
| Gukailai Wang | China | 51.54 |
Breaststroke:
| Breast | Country | Split |
| Nic Fink | USA | 54.88 |
| Nicolo Martinenghi | Italy | 55.52 |
| Yuya Hinomoto | Japan | 56.27 |
| Joshua Young | Australia | 56.55 |
| Lucas Matzerath | Germany | 56.96 |
| Javier Acevedo | Canada | 57.21 |
| Qin Haiyang | China | 57.36 |
| Matej Zaobjnik | Czech Republic | 57.49 |
Butterfly:
| Fly | Country | Split |
| Matthew Temple | Australia | 48.34 |
| Matteo Rivolta | Italy | 48.5 |
| Marius Kusch | Germany | 48.72 |
| Trenton Julian | USA | 49.19 |
| Ilya Kharun | Canada | 49.54 |
| Yuya Sakamoto | Japan | 50.06 |
| Chen Juner | China | 50.16 |
| Jan Sefl | Czech Republic | 50.78 |
Freestyle:
| Free | Country | Split |
| Kyle Chalmers | Australia | 44.63 |
| Alessandro Miressi | Italy | 45.56 |
| Kieran Smith | USA | 45.95 |
| Pan Zhanle | China | 46.09 |
| Ruslan Gaziev | Canada | 46.23 |
| Katsuhiro Matsumoto | Japan | 46.39 |
| Josha Salchow | Germany | 46.68 |
| Daniel Gracik | Czech Republic | 47.62 |
Speaking of splits – was Emma the first woman to also dip under 54 seconds in fly?
Great article. I love the split comparisons.
Not to take anything away from Aussies and Americans, but the truth is that Miressi’s relay exchange was lethargic to say the least and it cost Italy gold and WR.
Can’t spell Italy without an L
especially when it comes to football lately
4×50 mixed free relay lead off Kyle Chalmers 20.97. Michael Andrew 20.81
4×50 medley relay anchor Kyle Chalmers 20.48. Michael Andrew 20.39
Michael Andrew beat Kyle Chalmers twice
World SC championship 50 metres Free Kyle Chalmers 7th.
World SC championship 100 metres Free Kyle Chalmers 1st.
MA beat Kyle Chalmers in the heats of the 50 free but pulled out of the 50 event to concentrate on the 100 IM.
Lucky for Chalmers, he would’ve ended 8th otherwise.
How many times has Kyle Chalmers carried Australian relays on his back, from behind, to a podium finish (of whatever color)? Simply tremendous.
Yes he is the Alpha Dog of any Aussie relay team but his strength is also his ability to get his teammates to raise their standards out of respect for what he does time and time again. Every country needs one just like him. 🙌👑
And we’ve had 3 over these last few years – C1 , Emma and The King
If only Australia’s changeovers were more precise. Their fly starts slow in comparison. But amazing swims from all the boys. For a nation that doesn’t prioritize SC we did exceptionally well this week. Looking forward to the next few years leading into Paris.
Great race! Would have been even cooler if both teams had their full-fledged A teams (US would have been 2 sec faster). Guess we have to wait for LCM for that though..
How can there objectively be any down votes on this.
It was a great race!. Chalmers anchor was the fastest SCM rolling start 100 Meters in history.
Julian and Smith both swam great in relation to their best times, but the PBs of the still active American A-listers would be over 3 1/3 seconds improvement.
Julian flat start PB 100 SCM Fly :49.75
Dressel flat start PB 100 SCM Fly :47.78 – 1.97 second differential
Smith flat start PB 100 Free :47.04
Held flat start PB 100 Free :45.63 – 1.41 second differential
1.97 sec. + 1.41 second differential = 3.28 second differential
Don’t down vote objective comments. It is not an insult to the… Read more »
The downvotes are because they were not there. We don’t keep saying Winnington or Titmus weren’t there.. why wasn’t Curtiss used for example?
Exactly!!!! It’s embarrassing to say that if so & so were here the result would have been different.
You could say that for just about every race in the championship.
No Aussie was saying Campbell instead of Harris, the Aussies would’ve won the women’s 4X100 med.
You can only swim against who is present, but that doesn’t change the fact that not everyone was there. There can be all sorts of reasons (illness, injury, training status, traning plans for next focus, not fast enough in selection meet, don’t want to travel that distance, and many other etc.s) I had even noted in an earlier post that Winnington, Titmus and Stubblety-Cook were swimming well a few miles up the Australian East coast.
They did use Curtiss quite a bit, actually. He is just markedly better in the 50 than the 100 distance. (SCM :21.16 – :48.07 (both from Melbourne); LCM :21.76 – :50.57); The US picked its team based on LCM swims (:21.76 is hugely better… Read more »
The King getting it done…👑