{"id":727398,"date":"2026-06-10T12:47:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:47:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/727398\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T12:47:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T12:47:10","slug":"can-sienna-toohey-help-australia-contend-in-w-medley-relay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/727398\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Sienna Toohey Help Australia Contend in W Medley Relay?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Can Sienna Toohey Help Australia Contend in Women\u2019s Medley Relay?<\/p>\n

Over the last decade, the United States has dominated the women\u2019s 400 medley relay. The streak started at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro as the team of\u00a0Kathleen Baker,\u00a0Lilly King,\u00a0Dana Vollmer and\u00a0Simone Manuel stormed to gold. A year later,\u00a0Kelsi Dahlia took over the butterfly leg as the American women set a world record on the way to a world title. The record fell again at the 2019 World Championships, a third time at the Paris Olympics and finally at last year\u2019s World Championships<\/a>, with Regan Smith,\u00a0Kate Douglass,\u00a0Gretchen Walsh and\u00a0Torri Huske comprising the squad on the latter occasion<\/p>\n

In eight global long course competitions over that span, the Americans have won gold seven times. The lone exception was the Tokyo Olympic final in 2021 when Australia\u2019s\u00a0Cate Campbell overtook American\u00a0Abbey Weitzeil on the anchor leg to win gold by 0.13.<\/p>\n

In that race, the X-factor was the breaststroke leg. The Americans had Lydia Jacoby, the Olympic champion in the 100 breast, while no Australian woman had reached the final. But in relay action,\u00a0Chelsea Hodges managed to split 1:05.57, a second quicker than her time in the individual event and just a half-second behind Jacoby. That leg made the difference, putting\u00a0Emma McKeon and Campbell in position to close down the American team and secure gold.<\/p>\n

Since then, Australia has continued to struggle mightily compared to the rest of the world on breaststroke. Australia won medley relay silver in Paris, but only thanks to McKeon and Mollie O\u2019Callaghan overcoming a huge halfway deficit after Jenna Strauch split 1:07.31 on breaststroke, second-slowest in the field. Last year\u2019s World Championships brought only marginally better results, with\u00a0Ella Ramsay going 1:06.49 on her split. Once again, that was second-slowest in the field, but not by as big a margin, allowing Australia to cruise to silver.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Sienna Toohey after her 100 breaststroke victory at Australian Trials<\/a> \u2014 Photo Courtesy: Delly Carr \/ Swimming Australia<\/p>\n

Perhaps now Australia has hope for big improvement on the breaststroke leg thanks to\u00a0Sienna Toohey, the teenager who became the third-quickest Australian ever in her win Tuesday at the Australian Trials<\/a>. Toohey, 17, finished 22nd in the event at last year\u2019s World Championships, her international debut. Now, Toohey has broken through with a time of 1:05.97, behind only Olympic champion Leisel Jones and\u00a0Sarah Katsoulis all-time in her country.<\/p>\n

A time in the 1:05 range is quicker than Australia has gotten on a medley relay since that last victory five years ago. That\u2019s still a long way from the 1:04.27 Douglass swam for the United States last year, but Douglass\u2019 flat-start best time stands at 1:05.27, only seven tenths ahead of Toohey. Australia would gladly sign up for a deficit of only seven tenths when matched up with the United States later this summer at the Pan Pacific Championships.<\/p>\n

The Aussies have three-quarters of an elite relay. Backstroke world-record holder Kaylee McKeown has had the leadoff leg on lockdown for years, and O\u2019Callaghan has won two world titles in the 100 free in her career. McKeon\u2019s retirement left a big gap, but Alex Perkins has filled in nicely, following up her World Championship bronze in the 100 fly with a 56.26 split last year. Now, Toohey\u2019s improvement and youth gives Australia hope of putting a scare into the dominant American team.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Can Sienna Toohey Help Australia Contend in Women\u2019s Medley Relay? Over the last decade, the United States has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":727399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[64,63,44,22578],"class_list":["post-727398","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-news","tag-sienna-toohey"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=727398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/727398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/727399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=727398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=727398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=727398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}