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Relays encourage, let’s say, ‘lively debate’ throughout any sport they’re part of. They enable for a hypothetical dialogue; the environment, the group facet, and the burden of expectations all enable for athletes to soar to new heights in addition to sink to hitherto unknown depths.
The anchor leg particularly in swimming has one thing of a mythic high quality. Jason Lezak’s fabled 4×100 freestyle relay leg from the 2008 Olympic Games, which stands because the defining second when Michael Phelps’ dream of eight Olympic golds started to look actual, is the gold-standard. That win over France, by simply 0.08 seconds, stays seared within the collective consciousness. France’s revenge, 4 years later, is decidedly much less so.
The identification of the very best relay swimmer on the earth is then inherently tied to the athlete who anchors. This consecrated relay spot is nearly at all times reserved for the alpha within the group, the swimmer who you’ll again when the chips are down and every little thing appears misplaced.
Who that swimmer is, given the selection of anybody on the earth, is a debate as emotional as it’s statistical. U.S. swim followers would level to Jack Alexy, who dragged their males’s medley relay to a bronze medal final summer season that appeared a pipe dream simply days beforehand, due to the second-fastest relay swim in historical past.
Chinese followers may additionally make a case for Pan Zhanle who’s the one man to have cut up quicker than Alexy, doing so final summer season on the Paris Olympics (At simply 20 years outdated, Pan already has the second-most swims of anybody beneath the hallowed 47-second barrier). Italy’s Carlos D’Ambrosio, a newcomer on the world stage at 18, was a blistering 47.4-or-better on six events final summer season as he turns into their banner relay athlete.
The query for any head coach is that this: who do you belief when the stakes are highest? The final reply, for a number of years now, has been Kyle Chalmers. Australia’s golden boy from the Rio Olympics has been probably the most terrifying sight on any 100 freestyle anchor leg for a decade now.
Chalmers anchored dwelling Australia’s 4×100 free relay final night time in 46.93, en path to a brand new Commonwealth Games document of three:09.49. That was the Ninth-fastest swim in historical past within the occasion, and solely half a second behind the three:08.97 Australia swam final summer season to win World Championship gold.
For Chalmers, this was par for the course. For six years in a row he has anchored a males’s 4×100 free relay in beneath 47 seconds – in complete he has 15 splits beneath the 47 second barrier.
For all his particular person success, and he has gained every little thing there’s to win within the 100 free, his profession can be reminisced on for his relay prowess. No one else in historical past has fairly had the impact that he has.
In reality, just one nation apart from Australia has greater than ten. Thanks to Chalmers, Australia are high by this metric with a complete of 17 sub-47 relay swims. The U.S., probably the most profitable swimming nation in each Olympic and World Championship historical past, are only one behind with 16.
Take a second simply to understand that. The U.S., as an entire, has only one extra sub-47 splits than a boy from Port Lincoln. The 16 swims for the U.S. are unfold throughout eight athletes. Chalmers has extra sub-47 splits than the following three finest swimmers mixed and 20% of all sub-47 splits in historical past.
Nathan Adrian leads the way in which for the U.S. with 4 sub-47 swims, however even for the very best swimming nation on the earth there has not at all times been a transparent alternative on this leg. Their current stars in dash freestyle, Caeleb Dressel and Jack Alexy, have been extra typically used on the leadoff.
The solely swimmers to have extra of a stranglehold over their nation’s high swims are from the quartet of countries within the backside proper hand nook. Paul Biedermann, David Popovici, Andrej Barna, and Pieter van den Hoogenband maintain the one 46-point splits within the historical past of Germany, Romania, Serbia and the Netherlands, respectively.
From nations with no less than two swimmers having splits beneath the 47 second mark, Chalmers (88.2%) leads Pan Zhanle (71.4%, China) , Vladimir Morozov (66.7%, Russia), Brent Hayden (66.7%, Canada) and Alain Bernard (50%, France) for the best possession ratio.
In the near-decade since 2016, Chalmers has swum 15 of the 49 relay splits beneath the barrier (30.6%). The most from another nation in that interval is 11, from the U.S..
With simply that many elite swims consistency appears half and parcel, however Chalmers is extra than simply constant. The males’s 4×100 freestyle relay is the very best instance of this.
Since the flip of the last decade, Australia has gained 5 world or Olympic medals within the males’s 4×100 free relay – one bronze (2021), two silvers (2022, 2024) and two golds (2023, 2025). In precisely zero of these finals have they been larger than third place heading into Chalmers’ leg, and in solely two (2023, 2025) have they even been in a podium place at that time.
All 5 of these anchor legs from the Aussie star have been between 46.46 and 46.60. They make up one-third of the highest 15 100 freestyle relay splits in historical past and, alongside along with his 46.60 anchor from the 2019 4×100 medley relay and 46.63 anchor within the heats from the 2021 Olympic 4×100 freestyle relay, give him seven swims within the high 20. No different swimmer even has that many swims within the high 100. Chalmers has 18 of these, triple anybody else, and has extra swims within the high 20 than anybody else does within the high 100.
There could also be swimmers who’ve cut up quicker than him, however no different swimmer can match both his potential to churn out 46-mid splits or his longevity – he’s confronted off with six completely different U.S. anchors on the 4×100 freestyle alone, and is the one swimmer to have made each main particular person 100 free remaining since 2019. Not a single one of many swimmers from the 2016 4×100 free relay remaining – his first senior worldwide remaining – have been within the World Championship subject with him final summer season.
After (fortunately unfounded) issues that his time on the high could be short-lived after Rio as a result of a coronary heart situation (supraventricular tachycardia) that he has now had three main surgical procedures for, his continued reign as Australia’s #1 has not been handed to him on a silver platter. The South Australian athlete additionally had shoulder surgical procedures in 2020 and 2021 – neither of which seem to have slowed him down both.
Ever since profitable Olympic gold in Rio at simply 18 years outdated, Chalmers has been the Aussies’ go-to on the anchor leg for each males’s relay, and he retains developing with the products.
Back in that earlier graph, you possibly can see that Chalmers’ common finals cut up since then would rank simply exterior the highest 50. Some of these legs are non-anchor legs, similar to on the blended free relay the place the established order is M-M-F-F, however the majority of his swims have come on this vital leg.
Australia have gained 13 medals on relays the place he has anchored, from a complete of 18 finals. Through all of these – bear in mind, 18 finals – he has been overtaken by precisely one swimmer, Brazil’s Pedro Spajari, on one event, the 2018 Pan Pacific Games 4×100 freestyle relay.
Even so, Chalmers ran down Japan’s Juran Mizohata in that race, ending his leg a web impartial second place. Chalmers has by no means completed a finals anchor leg in a decrease place than he began it.
Replace his anchor legs through the years with a time of 47.50 – a mark solely round 100 swimmers have ever been beneath – and have a look at the distinction in a few of the outcomes.
Those 13 medals drop to only 9, and simply two golds somewhat than 5. Chalmers has been the final word joker on the ultimate leg for Australia.
No different swimmer is as essential to their nation’s relay success as Chalmers is true now. In a approach, after a decade of delivering, that’s nothing new for him.
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