FINA World Championships editorial coverage is proudly sponsored by SpeedoUSA. For all the latest coverage, check out our event coverage page.<\/p>\n
BARCELONA, Spain, August 4. FOR the first time since 2005, someone other than an American heard their national anthem during the medal ceremony of the men’s 400-meter IM as Japan’s Daiya Seto ripped the world title away from the Americans at the FINA World Championships.<\/p>\n
Seto surged past the pack to win the distance medley this evening in 4:08.69, smashing his lifetime best of 4:10.10 set at the Japanese National Sports Festival last September. With the swim, he became the sixth fastest swimmer ever in the event’s history, and just the seventh swimmer to clear 4:09. That’s Seto’s first long course world medal, and is Japan’s first world title in the event’s history. <\/p>\n
Seto first burst onto the international scene last year with a gold in this event at the world short course championships in Istanbul. He also took silver in the 200-meter IM that week as well. However, the world was waiting to see if he could pull it off at the pinnacle long course meet of the year. <\/p>\n
USA’s Chase Kalisz closed out a strong few months, where he dropped significant time on his lifetime best to become a world championship medalist for the first time. He clocked a 4:09.22 to take silver this evening, becoming the eighth-fastest performer all time in the distance medley. With Seto in the game heading into the 2016 Rio Olympics, the two could stage some Michael Phelps\/Ryan Lochte duels during the course of the next three years.<\/p>\n
Brazil’s Thiago Pereira, who has bloggers writing as if he were going to scratch the 400 IM this week, sandbagged his way to bronze with a 4:09.48. He’s been faster with a 4:08.86 lifetime best from the 2009 FINA World Championships, but tonight is his best in textile. That’s his second bronze of the week, having taking third in the 200-meter IM as well just a year after taking silver in the 400-meter IM at the 2012 London Olympics.<\/p>\n
USA’s Tyler Clary (4:10.39), Japan’s Kosuke Hagino (4:10.77), Hungary’s David Verraszto (4:13.68), Great Britain’s Daniel Wallace (4:13.72) and Australia’s Thomas Fraser-Holmes (4:17.46) also vied for the world title in the finale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
FINA World Championships editorial coverage is proudly sponsored by SpeedoUSA. For all the latest coverage, check out our event coverage page. BARCELONA, Spain, August 4. FOR the first time since<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"dois","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3,24690,10],"tags":[54019],"class_list":["post-38374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-featured","category-frontpage","category-world","tag-2013-fina-world-long-course-championships"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"yoast_head":"\r\n