FINA World Championships Predictions: Women’s 800 Free Relay

I’m not sure Missy Franklin deserves to be mentioned as the part of Olympic golden team in Rio. Shouldn’t be American that lucky to find emergency replacement to cover unexpected drop of almost 2 sec in Franklin’s performance then even Ledecky’s 1:53 split wouldn’t help to save gold medal.
This year team doesn’t look faster. Also the schedule isn’t favorite to Americans: Comerford and Manuel have 800 relay right in between 100 free semi and final and they probably won’t swim to their limits in relay. Katie Ledecky and Leah Smith have 1500 and 200 finals just before this relay. Plus Leah has to remember about challenging 800free and 400IM after that. Hopefully the competition won’t be that tough to require American team to swim at the top of their abilities to win.

It would be fair to say that this may not be the strongest US W4X200 ever fielded ….. but they will not need to be a peak vintage to win this relay comfortable. Realistically they would need to shoot themselves in the foot not to win. Why ?? Because most everyone else have been decimated by post Olympic retirements and sabbaticals and none of these countries have the requisite depth to fill the gaps.

CHN is likely to be the only other team within camera shot at the finish due to having a fairly even line-up of 1.56-1.57 swimmers but they currently lack someone who can deliver than stormer (sub1.55) leg that might draw them closer to a Ledecky led US.

Bronze ?? They may as well hold a raffle !!
– AUS was silver in Rio and still has the potent weapon of McKeon (1.54 swimmer) but retirements and absentees have decimated the depth and the rest of the squad are basically 1.57high/1,58s. – -CAN …. similar boat to AUS; Oleksiak will be present but has not shown the pace of 2016 so far, Ruck did not make selection and McLean retired.
– ITA still possesses Pellegrini but what is the strength of their lower seeds ?
– HUN maybe a bit of a smokie with the X factor of Hosszu backed up by the likes of Kapas
– JAP is another X factor but not sure of their depth beyond Ikee & Igarishi as they have only sent 9 women to Budapest