{"id":506753,"date":"2022-06-18T11:05:23","date_gmt":"2022-06-18T18:05:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=506753"},"modified":"2022-06-18T14:53:01","modified_gmt":"2022-06-18T21:53:01","slug":"world-championships-americans-pull-away-for-mens-400-free-relay-gold-with-dressel-held-ress-curry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/world-championships-americans-pull-away-for-mens-400-free-relay-gold-with-dressel-held-ress-curry\/","title":{"rendered":"World Championships: Americans Pull Away for Men’s 400 Free Relay Gold With Dressel, Held, Ress, Curry"},"content":{"rendered":"

World Championships: Americans Pull Away for Men’s 400 Free Relay Gold With Dressel, Held, Ress, Curry<\/strong><\/p>\n

The United States has not lost the men’s 400 freestyle relay at a major international competition since\u00a0Caeleb Dressel<\/strong> first took the blocks as the leadoff swimmer in 2016, and that streak continued at the World Championships in Budapest. Dressel led off for the U.S. in 47.67, the fastest 100 freestyle mark in the world this year. He touched just ahead of Canada’s Josh Liendo<\/strong> (47.87), and Dressel’s American teammates did the job from there.<\/p>\n

Ryan Held<\/strong> swam the second leg for the U.S., and he\u00a0delivered a massive 46.99 split to put the American team almost seven tenths ahead. Justin Ress <\/strong>handled the third leg after he blasted an impressive 47.57 split in prelims, and he swam even quicker with a 47.48 split at night. Brooks Curry<\/strong> anchored in 47.20, and the Americans’ final time was 3:09.34, almost a second-and-a-half ahead of anyone else in the field.<\/p>\n

“I just wanted to get my hand on the wall first, get these guys some clean water,” Dressel said in a post-race interview with NBC Sports. “Of course, the time\u2019s not even great, but we\u2019re not going for time here. We\u2019re going to win. We got the job done. We did. Everyone did their part, and it was awesome. Really fun race to be a part of.”<\/p>\n

While Dressel has become a mainstay for the U.S., the supporting cast has completely turned over. Nathan Adrian<\/strong>, the 2012 Olympic gold medalist in the 100 free and a member of this relay squad for a decade, has not competed since he missed making the U.S. Olympic team last year, and none of the swimmers who joined Dressel on the finals squad that won gold in Tokyo, Blake Pieroni<\/strong>,\u00a0Bowe Becker<\/strong> and\u00a0Zach Apple<\/strong>, qualified for Worlds this year, with Pieroni dealing with injuries and Becker and Apple both missing the U.S. team at the International Team Trials in April. Although the entire Russian squad was absent while under suspension, no other contenders were missing any key names, and the Americans still won easily.<\/p>\n

For Held, the moment was particularly special as he was competing on the major international level for the first time since helping the U.S. men capture Olympic gold in this event in 2016. After narrowly missing World Championships teams in 2017 and 2019, Held believed he had qualified for the 2021 Olympic team after finishing sixth place at Olympic Trials in the 100 free, but he was surprisingly left off the squad because the Americans could only take 12 relay-only swimmers to the Games. But he rebounded significantly this year to qualify for the team, and when he learned about his sub-47 split in a post-race television interview, Held screamed with joy.<\/p>\n

“I had it in my head all day, ‘47.1 is child\u2019s play’. 46.9. 46.9. Let\u2019s go,” Held said. “At Trials, I was telling the guys, I had this dark cloud over my head. I thought it could maybe happen again, but now I\u2019m here, I\u2019m on the team. This is why I love swimming, just racing and having fun.”<\/p>\n

In a back-and-forth battle for second place, Canada and Hungary were in the mix over the first half of the race before Italy took over with a 47.35 split from\u00a0Lorenzo Zazzeri<\/strong> on the third leg. But at the end, Australia’s\u00a0Kyle Chalmers<\/strong> split 46.60, quicker than anyone else in the field, to move the Aussies up from fifth place to second. Australia’s team of\u00a0William Yang<\/strong>,\u00a0Matt Temple<\/strong>,\u00a0Jack Cartwright<\/strong> and Chalmers took silver in 3:10.80, while Italy’s Alessandro Miressi<\/strong>,\u00a0Thomas Ceccon<\/strong>, Zazzeri and\u00a0Manuel Frigo<\/strong> finished with a bronze medal in 3:10.95.<\/p>\n

In addition to Chalmers and Held, Hungary’s\u00a0Kristof Milak\u00a0<\/strong>(46.89) and Great Britain’s\u00a0Tom Dean\u00a0<\/strong>(46.95) split under 47. Neither swimmer walked away from this race with a medal, but it was a positive start to the World Championships for two swimmers who won individual Olympic golds last year, Milak in the 200 butterfly and Dean in the 200 free.<\/p>\n

\"m400freerelay-worlds\"<\/p>\n