World Championships: Great Britain, U.S. to Face Off in Men’s 800 Free Relay Heats (Full Lineups)

Tom Dean of Great Britain competes in the Men's Freestyle 200m Heats during the 20th World Aquatics Championships at the Marine Messe Hall A in Fukuoka (Japan), July 24th, 2023.

Great Britain's Tom Dean -- Photo Courtesy: Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

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World Championships: Great Britain, U.S. to Face Off in Men’s 800 Free Relay Heats (Full Lineups)

The two favored teams in the men’s 800 freestyle relay will race side-by-side in heat two of the event in Friday morning’s qualifying. The Americans will be in lane four, with Drew Kibler leading off after he spearheaded last year’s gold-medal-winning squad, while Britain swims most of its full squad in lane five.

View the full start lists for the heats.

For the Brits, Joe Litchfield handles leadoff duties, and he will be followed by three swimmers expected to return at night, all individual-medal winners so far in Fukuoka: Duncan Scott, Tom Dean and Matt Richards. Richards and Dean went 1-2 in the 200 free while Scott and Dean placed 2-3 behind Leon Marchand in Thursday evening’s 200 IM. James Guy is expected to join this group in the final. Guy has yet to race in Fukuoka, but he also has the 100 fly prelims Friday morning, so he will rest the relay.

The U.S. will follow Kibler with a trio of World Championships rookies: Baylor Nelson, Henry McFadden and Jake Mitchell. The fastest of these four swimmers is likely to join Luke Hobson, Kieran Smith and Carson Foster in the final.

The favorite for the bronze medal, Australia, goes with Flynn Southam, Elijah Winnington, Kai Taylor and Thomas Neill in prelims. We’ll see how many of those men return for the final, but Alexander Graham is a possible addition.

Brazil’s relay features 200 free Olympic bronze medalist Fernando Scheffer plus distance ace Guilherme Costa while France will try to qualify for the final without Leon Marchand, although the three-time champion would be a likely candidate to join the finals relay provided France qualifies.

Hwang Sunwoo, the bronze medalist behind Richards and Dean in the 200 free, leads off for a South Korean team that could surprise medal candidate after Lee Hojoon also swam in the Worlds final earlier this week. Lukas Martens, the bronze medalist in the 400 free, leads off for Germany while Hungary’s team is bookended by 100 free finalist Nandor Nemeth and open water star Kristof Rasovszky.

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