{"id":593117,"date":"2024-07-30T04:57:22","date_gmt":"2024-07-30T11:57:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/?p=593117"},"modified":"2024-07-30T05:18:38","modified_gmt":"2024-07-30T12:18:38","slug":"paris-olympics-day-4-prelims-great-britain-sets-up-800-free-relay-title-defense-nine-teams-advance-to-final-after-eighth-place-tie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swimmingworldmagazine.com\/news\/paris-olympics-day-4-prelims-great-britain-sets-up-800-free-relay-title-defense-nine-teams-advance-to-final-after-eighth-place-tie\/","title":{"rendered":"Paris Olympics, Day 4 Prelims: Great Britain Sets Up 800 Free Relay Title Defense; Nine Teams Advance to Final After Eighth-Place Tie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paris Olympics, Day 4 Prelims: Great Britain Sets Up 800 Free Relay Title Defense; Nine Teams Advance to Final After Eighth-Place Tie<\/strong><\/p>\n

Three years ago, Great Britain won its first Olympic gold medal in a swimming relay in more than a decade. In Paris, the same quartet from that gold-medal team is likely to return intact and aim to repeat its finish. The British men will enter the 800 free relay final as favorites, with the second and fourth-place finishers from the individual 200 free set to join the team in the final.<\/p>\n

In prelims, the top qualifying time belonged to the Brits at 7:05.11, less than a half-second clear of the United States.\u00a0James Guy<\/strong> led off in 1:45.04, a time which would have placed fifth in the individual final, and\u00a0Jack McMillan<\/strong> followed with an impressive 1:45.68.\u00a0Kieran Bird<\/strong> (1:47.68) and\u00a0Tom Dean<\/strong> (1:46.71) finished things off.<\/p>\n

The time was Guy’s personal best, lowering a nine-year-old time he recorded at the 2015 World Championships, when Guy won gold in the 200 free gold.<\/p>\n

“It\u2019s just great,” Guy said. “I think just doing the right training. I\u2019ve swum some great results in training the last year and I knew that I was going to swim fast in terms of my freestyle it\u2019s just been proven what I have been seeing in the (training) pool. Clearly what I\u2019m doing with Ryan Livingstone<\/strong> is working so thanks to him and the Millfield guys for getting me back to where I used to be.”<\/p>\n

Entering the field at night will be 200 free silver medalist\u00a0Matt Richards<\/strong> and fourth-place finisher\u00a0Duncan Scott<\/strong>, who both clocked 1:44s in the final. Guy is certain to return, while Dean is likely. The Olympic gold medalist in the 200 free in Tokyo, Dean narrowly missed a spot in the individual event, but the British coaches will likely trust his year-to-year consistency (and threat of a 1:43 split) in the final over the more inexperienced McMillan.<\/p>\n

On the finals lineup the Brits will deploy, Guy said, “Not yet. We have an idea but the coaches will do all that and talk over that all now. Even this morning we were skeptical about resting two; we don\u2019t know the order, nothing, that is all to be discussed now and later we\u2019ll find out what\u2019s happening.”<\/p>\n