4 × 100 m medley relay, men

What to remember

On August 1, 2021, at the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, the American relay swam the 4 × 100 m medley in 3 min 26.78 s. Ryan Murphy opened on backstroke (52.31 s), Michael Andrew followed on breaststroke (58.49 s), Caeleb Dressel took butterfly (49.03 s) and Zach Apple finished on freestyle (46.95 s).

The stroke order is fixed: backstroke must go first, because that leg starts in the water. In this relay, the breaststroke leg was the slowest.

Ryan Murphy, a backstroke specialist, already knew this relay well. At the 2016 Olympics he won it with Michael Phelps, Nathan Adrian and Cody Miller, and his opening leg broke the 100 m backstroke world record, beating the mark that Aaron Peirsol had set in 2009. In Tokyo he left with this relay gold, a silver medal in the 200 m backstroke and a bronze in the 100 m backstroke.