Great Britain Aiming for Unprecedented Repeat in 800 Free Relay

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Great Britain Aiming for Unprecedented Olympic Repeat in Men’s 800 Freestyle Relay

Relays have been part of the Olympic swimming program since the fourth edition of the Games, held in London in 1908, but in more than a century, there has never been a quartet of four men or four women to successfully defend an Olympic gold medal. Sure, countries have repeated, including the ongoing streak of 10 U.S. titles in the men’s 400 medley relay, but never with the exact same grouping.

Great Britain will be targeting that exact accomplishment at next year’s Paris Games. Two years ago in Tokyo, Tom Dean, James Guy, Matt Richards and Duncan Scott dominated the relay in Tokyo, with Richards taking over the top spot during the third leg and Scott pulling away to win by more than three seconds. No one would be surprised if it is again this group celebrating the top spot next summer.

The team split up in 2022 when Scott missed the World Championships because of the aftereffects of COVID-19 while Richards struggled and lost his spot on the finals quarter. But they were back together at Worlds this year, winning gold by just under one second over the United States but with a twist.

In 2021, Dean and Scott had been the headliners after winning Olympic gold and silver, respectively, in the 200 free, while Guy was the veteran presence and Richards the talented teen emerging onto the scene. Now, the 20-year-old Richards has become the man for Great Britain in the event, leading a 1-2 with Dean in the individual event in Fukuoka while Scott has joined Guy as a solid, dependable veteran presence even though he’s no longer around his best times.

Great Britain has Jack McMillan and Joe Litchfield as 1:46-capable swimmers, but the talent level of the big four is significantly ahead of their domestic challengers. So it’s a good bet that these four men will race in the Olympic final, where teams such as the United States and Australia could pose a challenge, but following the recent world title, Britain will enter in the favorite spot.

The last group to come close to pulling off the Olympic repeat was the Netherlands’ team of Inge Dekker, Ranomi Kromowidjojo, Femke Heemskerk and Marleen Veldhuis. After winning gold in the women’s 400 free relay in a tight finish over the United States and Australia in 2008, the same group returned to defend the title four years later.

By the London Games, Veldhuis was 33 and no longer the anchor of a talented but inexperienced squad. Instead, it was the 21-year-old Kromowidjojo serving as the team’s best swimmer in an Olympics where she would win individual gold medals in the 50 and 100 free. However, the Dutch came up just short in 2012,with Australian anchor Melanie Schlanger holding off Kromowidjojo’s 51.93 anchor split.

In the mid-2000s, the American men had a consistent 400 medley relay group consisting of Aaron Peirsol on backstroke, Brendan Hansen on breaststroke and Jason Lezak on freestyle. That group set a world record at the 2002 Pan Pacific Championships with Michael Phelps handling butterfly, but at the World Championships the following year, Ian Crocker had replaced Phelps on fly after beating Phelps and taking away the world record in the individual event.

At the 2004 Olympics, Phelps knocked off Crocker for individual gold in the 100 fly, but Phelps ceded his relay spot to Crocker, still the world-record holder, to join Peirsol, Hansen and Lezak on the way to gold and a new world record. Four years later, Phelps was back in the fly spot, still with Peirsol, Hansen and Lezak on the other legs, and the result was the same, gold and a world record. So the exact same foursome set world records six years apart, but the butterfly switch prevented the exact same squad from pulling the double.

The U.S. men also nearly accomplished the full-squad repeat during the stretch when Phelps and Ryan Lochte swam on gold-medal-winning 800 free relay squads in four straight Olympics. Phelps was 19 when he led off the 2004 relay with Lochte, Peter Vanderkaay and Klete Keller that upset Australia. Four years later, the Americans were big favorites for gold, and the same foursome surely would have won, but the U.S. coaches picked Ricky Berens for the finals lineup instead of Keller after Berens had a slightly quicker split in the prelims relay.

Four years after that, Phelps, Lochte and Berens returned with Conor Dwyer joining the squad, and then in 2016, Townley Haas teamed with Phelps, Lochte and Dwyer. The Americans won a fourth consecutive gold that night with Phelps posting a spirited anchor swim by Britain’s Guy. Next year, everything could come full-circle as Guy could reunite with a team trying to make a unique piece of history that the Phelps-Lochte group and the core American medley relay group so close to reaching.

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Welcome to our community. We invite you to join our discussion. Our community guidelines are simple: be respectful and constructive, keep on topic, and support your fellow commenters. Commenting signifies that you agree to our Terms of Use