Swimming Blogs - Chris DeSantis

Could the French men be favorites to win the 400 freestyle relay this summer? If their fast swimming today at their Olympic trials is any indication of whats to come in the 100 free final tomorrow, then the answer would be yes. I found myself wrestling with the idea today. Maybe I should have seen it coming when earlier this season they set an unofficial world record for short course meters. Still, its hard to believe that the French team is so fast. In 2007, I would have ranked the favorites in the 400 freestyle relay in this order:

1. USA: Owners of the world record in this event at 3:12.46. The scariest thing about them is the depth of sprinting in the United States. You could argue that their vulnerability lies in the fact that relay member Cullen Jones has not swum well since setting this record, and you can hardly count on older veterans like Jason Lezak of Neil Walker for improvement at this point in their career. However, if any of these swimmers struggle, team USA could fill their spots with a couple swimmers who have dropped considerable time in 2008: Garrett Weber-Gale (48.50) and Matt Grevers (48.53). Throw in the fact that Michael Phelps is improving over 100 meters and Ryan Lochte's possible bid to make the relay and its looking pretty good. If thats not enough, consider that beyond all these names, swimmers who have split 48.0 (Ricky Berens), gone 41.9 over 100 yards (Alex Righi) or won nationals with a 48.9 (Dave Walters) will also be making bids for the squad. Team USA is definitely not hurting for depth.

2. South Africa- This relay has struggled since their upset victory in Athens, still they looked pretty good at the conclusion of 2007. Roland Schoeman (48.41) and Lyndon Ferns (48.82) were still swimming at a high level. Ryk Neethling (49.15) saw his times decline a bit, but Gideon Louw came out of nowhere to drop a 49.07 and Darian Townsend (49.50) seemed to finally be on the rebound.

3. Italy: Silver medalists at the World Championships in 2007. None of their swimmers look that impressive on a flat start with the exception of Fillipo Magnini, yet they were second only to the Americans in 2007.

After that? I guess I might have had France fourth, but I probably would have gone with Australia, with their host of young freestylers alongside Eamon Sullivan, who went 48.47 in 2007. Flash forward to 2008, and its a much different picture. At French Olympic trials, one club relay, without Alain Bernard, swam a 3:14.81. The next relay, with Bernard, was 3:16.88. Each relay did have a non-french swimmer on it, but 3:14.81 was just .13 from the French national team's bronze medal winning time from the 2007 World Championships. So how did we get here? Well, each of the likely swimmers on France's Beijing Olympic relay dropped considerable time from 2007 to 2008.

Each swimmer, with their 2007 time listed first, and then their 2008 best to date.

Alain Bernard: 48.12/47.50
Fred Bousquet 49.52/48.52
Amaury Leveaux 49.70/48.38
Fabien Gilot 48.49/48.02

In total, the four swimmers likely to represent France in the 400 free relay this summer are 3.41 seconds faster than they were last summer. If they swim 3 seconds faster than they did on a relay last year, they will go 3:11, a pretty tough time to beat. I don't think this group will go as low as 3:11 since Bousquet was better last year than his 49.52. A 3:12.0 world record remains a distinct possibility, since that would only require the team to hold 48.0 and they already have two swimmers that speed or faster from a flat start.

Of course, there is also the possibility that this French team could break the world record and lose. Much has been made of the American vulnerability in relays since 2000 when they lost their first 4x100 to the Australians. Can France make it three in a row for the rest of the world? Only time will tell.