World Aquatics Drops 400 Mixed Free Relay from Events List

World Aquatics Drops 400 Mixed Free Relay from Events List

World Aquatics has aligned the occasion slates on the World Aquatics Championships and the Olympics by dropping the 400 blended free relay.

The change seems in the newest World Aquatics Competition Regulations, dated Feb. 2026 (page 52 of this pdf). The regulations show the “mixed relay” occasions for the World Aquatics Championships as included solely the 4x100m medley. The 25-meter World Championships will nonetheless embrace a blended 200 freestyle and a blended 200 medley relay along with the blended 400 medley relay.

The laws will subsequent consider on the 2026 World Short-Course Championships in Beijing later this 12 months earlier than the 2027 World Aquatics Championships in Budapest.

The adjustments imply that each the Olympics – with the addition of 50-meter strokes for the 2028 Games in Los Angeles – and long-course Worlds characteristic 20 males’s and 20 girls’s occasions with one blended occasion.

The blended free relay was first adopted on the 2015 World Aquatics Championships in Kazan, Russia, alongside the 400 blended medley relay. The latter contains significantly extra technique in the way to optimize strokes.

Only the blended medley relay was added to the Olympic docket, debuting on the 2021 Olympics in Tokyo. The blended free relay was by no means on the Olympic occasions checklist.

The United States gained gold on the first three installments of the blended 400 free relay, in 2015, 2017 and 2019, earlier than successful what seems to be the final title in 2025. In between, Australia gained the 2022 and 2023 races with China taking the crown in 2024.

The U.S. gained medals in every of the seven installments, with a silver and two bronze. Canada has two bronze and a silver, the Dutch two silvers. Eight nations have gained the 21 complete medals, together with the Neutral Athletes from Russia taking silver in Singapore.