Olympic Swimming 2021: Men's 4x200M Freestyle Relay Medal Winners and Times
Great Britain easily captured the gold medal during the men's 4x200-meter freestyle relay at the Tokyo Olympics on Wednesday as the United States failed to reach the podium.
Tom Dean, James Guy, Matthew Richards and Scott Duncan combined for a 6:58.58 finish, setting a European record and coming from behind to win by nearly three-and-a-half seconds.
A day after Dean won the 200-meter freestyle final, he got back in the pool for another 200 meters and helped the favorites easily mop up the rest of the world.
Men's 4x200M Freestyle Relay Final
1. Great Britain (Tom Dean, James Guy, Matthew Richards, Duncan Scott): 6:58.58
2. Russian Olympic Committee (Martin Malyutin, Ivan Girev, Evgeny Rylov, Mikhail Dovgalyuk): 7:01.81
3. Australia (Alexander Graham, Kyle Chalmers, Zac Incerti, Thomas Neill): 7:01.84
4. United States (Kieran Smith, Drew Kibler, Zach Apple, Townley Haas): 7:02.43
5. Italy (Stefano Ballo, Matteo Ciampi, Filippo Megli, Stefano di Cola): 7:03.24
6. Switzerland (Antonio Djakovic, Nils Liess, Noe Ponti, Roman Mityukov): 7:06.12
7. Germany (Lukas Martens, Poul Zellmann, Bennet Henning Muhlleitner, Jacob Heidtmann): 7:06.51
8. Brazil (Fernando Scheffer, Murilo Setin Sartori, Breno Correia, Luiz Altamir Melo): 7:08.22
Results via official Olympics website
The United States missed out on a bronze medal by less than a second after previously dominating the event over the last four Olympic games.
On the NBC prime-time broadcast, U.S. Olympic swimming great Michael Phelps said the Americans were at a disadvantage without Caeleb Dressel in the relay. Dressel easily won his 100-meter freestyle semifinal just over an hour before the 4x200.
Each member of the GBR team swam his leg of the relay in 1:45.72 or faster with Scott, serving as the anchor, putting together a team-best 1:43.45 to capture first place.
The Americans still hold the Olympic record in the 4x200 thanks to a time of 6:58.56 at the Beijing Olympics in 2008, but it's clear the United States relay club isn't near the level of past teams.
