{"id":534225,"date":"2023-07-29T14:28:46","date_gmt":"2023-07-29T21:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=534225"},"modified":"2023-07-29T14:30:06","modified_gmt":"2023-07-29T21:30:06","slug":"can-u-s-conclude-world-championships-with-medley-relay-wins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/can-u-s-conclude-world-championships-with-medley-relay-wins\/","title":{"rendered":"Can U.S. Conclude World Championships With Medley Relay Wins?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can U.S. Conclude World Championships With Medley Relay Wins?<\/strong><\/p>\n

As usual, the 400 medley relays will be final races of the World Championships in Fukuoka, and the often-dominant Americans will enter having yet to reach the top of the podium in the six relays already contested<\/a>. The U.S. and Australia have each finished in the top-three in every relay so far, but the Aussies have four relay wins and superior finishes to the Americans in all except the men’s 800 freestyle relay.<\/p>\n

Moving away from freestyle, a stroke which Australia has dominated this week with six out of 10 individual gold medals and three out of four relays, can the Americans finally touch first in one of these medleys or even both? Yes, absolutely \u2014 but neither will come easily with stacked opponents looming.<\/p>\n

Beginning with the men’s medley relay, we have identified six countries with the firepower to at least challenge for a medal, and each of these countries had at least one podium finisher in a 100-meter race. The U.S., actually, got a man on the podium in each of the strokes, with\u00a0Ryan Murphy<\/strong> winning gold in the men’s 100 backstroke,\u00a0Nic Fink\u00a0<\/strong>finishing in a three-way tie for silver in the 100 breaststroke,\u00a0Dare Rose<\/strong> taking bronze in the 100 butterfly<\/a> and\u00a0Jack Alexy<\/strong> blasting an outside-lane silver medal in the 100 free<\/a>. The top competition includes:<\/p>\n