{"id":341790,"date":"2018-12-11T06:27:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-11T13:27:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=341790"},"modified":"2019-07-21T02:24:50","modified_gmt":"2019-07-21T09:24:50","slug":"mallory-comerford-splits-51-0-give-team-usa-gold-medal-4x100-free-relay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/mallory-comerford-splits-51-0-give-team-usa-gold-medal-4x100-free-relay\/","title":{"rendered":"Mallory Comerford Splits 51.0 to Give Team USA Gold Medal in 4×100 Free Relay"},"content":{"rendered":"

Women’s 4×100 Free Relay<\/h3>\n

The United States saw a huge split from\u00a0Mallory Comerford\u00a0<\/strong>on the third leg of the 4×100 free relay on Tuesday night in Hangzhou, as Comerford split a 51.09 to blow by the Netherlands to give Louisville teammate\u00a0Kelsi Dahlia\u00a0<\/strong>the lead on the anchor leg. Team USA won the final with a 3:27.78, a little off the world record of 3:26.53 from the Netherlands in 2014.<\/p>\n

The United States held off the Netherlands as Dahlia split a 51.40 to hold off\u00a0Ranomi Kromowidjojo\u00a0<\/strong>(50.77), who had the fastest split of anyone in the final.\u00a0Olivia Smoliga\u00a0<\/strong>(52.71),\u00a0Lia Neal\u00a0<\/strong>(52.58), Comerford (51.09) and Dahlia (51.40) won the first gold medal for the Americans at the 2018 FINA World Short Course Championships.<\/p>\n

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Dahlia\u00a0<\/strong>(on winning relay gold): \u201cRelays are so fun, and \u2026 these girls I really trusted them. I was happy to be the anchor, and it\u2019s great to start off the meet with a relay gold. Olivia and Mallory set the tone tonight. They had great swims earlier in the meet, so we were fired up.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Smoliga\u00a0<\/strong>(on swimming on a relay with former NCAA rivals): \u201cIt\u2019s an honor representing Team USA and being able to compete with these girls that we\u2019ve known each other for so long. We were joking around that it\u2019s kind of like a collegiate meet. We swam together in college for a couple of years, so it was really fun to come together for the USA.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The Dutch took the lead at the halfway point with\u00a0Femke Heemskerk\u00a0<\/strong>splitting a 50.93, which was the second fastest split of anyone in the field. But\u00a0Maaike de Waard\u00a0<\/strong>was run down by Comerford on the third leg as the former split a 53.13. The Netherlands took the silver medal at 3:28.02 with\u00a0Kim Busch\u00a0<\/strong>(53.19), Heemskerk (50.93), de Waard (53.13) and Kromowidjojo (50.77).<\/p>\n

Those two countries were well in front of the rest of the field as China got its first women’s medal of the championships with a bronze here in the relay.\u00a0Zhu Menghui\u00a0<\/strong>(52.58),\u00a0Yang Junxuan\u00a0<\/strong>(52.28),\u00a0Liu Xiaohan\u00a0<\/strong>(53.26) and\u00a0Wang Jingzhuo\u00a0<\/strong>(52.80) swam for the Chinese as they held off Japan (3:31.68) and Russia (3:32.48) for the bronze.<\/p>\n

Germany (3:33.27), Hong Kong (3:40.25) and Turkey (3:41.25) also swam in the final.<\/p>\n