Tokyo Olympics 2020: Madi Wilson reveals how Australia mastered the split-second art of relay swimming

Madi Wilson knows how a split-second decision can ruin your day – and it’s why she and her teammates practice hard to avoid the dreaded DQ. She reveals the art of the changeover.

After every Olympic relay final, there is always a fleeting moment when the winning team fears the worst.

It happens during those few seconds when the scoreboard blacks out while the judges check to see that none of the swimmers left the blocks too early.

If everything is OK, the team remains at the top of the results list when the scoreboard lights up again, with the number 1 next to the country name.

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Australia’s women have an enviable record in Olympic relays.

But if there’s an infraction, the team tumbles to the bottom of the list, accompanied by the most dreaded letters in swimming: DQ.

For the swimmers, the wait for the official results to appear is always agony, because it messes with their minds.

One of the keys to winning relays at the highest level is to cut the timing between each handover to tiny fractions of a second, leaving little room for error.

To the naked eye, it always looks as though the swimmers dive too soon, but it’s usually just an optical illusion because the margins are so tight.

“It is a super fine line, but it’s something we spend a lot of time training for,” said Madi Wilson, one of Australia’s top relay stars.

“When there’s a pause at the end of the race, everyone kind of looks at each other like, ‘Oh my gosh, what’s happening?’ and then you start replaying the race in your head.

“But it’s really just about working out when the exact right timing is and although it looks pretty risky on the TV, I think we have it down pat.”

Madi Wilson (far right) tasted relay success at the 2019 World Championships

Wilson isn’t kidding about that part.

Australia’s women are the best relay swimmers on the planet, winning gold medals in the 4x100m freestyle at the last two Olympics as well as the 4x100m and 4x200m freestyle double at the last world championships.

And they are only getting faster. The top three women in the world this year for 100m freestyle are all Aussies and our fourth-fastest is ranked equal sixth.

It’s no wonder the team is odds-on to win gold on the first day of swimming finals in Tokyo – just as long as no one gets disqualified.

Therein lies the biggest danger, because for four of the six relay swimmers, there’s another race within the race.

With Emma McKeon and Cate Campbell likely to be rested from the heats and saved for the final, the remaining four – Wilson, Bronte Campbell, Mollie O’Callaghan and Meg Harris — will swim the heats.

Their instructions will be to qualify the team safely for the final, but there’s a twist: they’ll also be racing each other for the two remaining spots in the medal round and a quick start off the blocks could prove the difference.

The dive is so important in relay swimming.

There’s a simple trick to getting the timing just right.

The swimmer waiting on the block places their arms out in front of them to follow the incoming swimmer, then just before they get to the wall, they throw their arms back then forward as they begin falling into the water, so that they are already moving, but their toes are still on the blocks, at the moment of changeover.

But a new method, developed in the US and called the step-over start, is giving swimmers even more momentum off the start, shaving more precious fractions of seconds.

Instead of placing their feet at the front of the block, swimmers start from the back of the block, stepping over the centre wedge with one foot as the inbound swimmers approaches and pushing off with the other foot to get away even faster.

Australia has never used that technique at an Olympics before, but head coach Rohan Taylor said a number of swimmers had mastered the practice during lockdown so would use it in Tokyo.

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“Some athletes are trying that and have felt comfortable with it. It really is an individual choice,” Taylor said.

“The whole purpose of the changeover is to get as much momentum through the air as you can and so the type of changeover you do needs to create the momentum.

“Some will do just a standard two feet and just go, some will do the step up, so it really is an individual thing. We don’t encourage one or the other. We just try to find the one that works the best.”

Wilson has no concerns about anyone taking off too early, no matter which method they use.

She won a gold medal at the 2016 Rio Olympics as a heat swimmer, and a gold at the last world championships swimming in the final, and said both experiences were so fulfilling no-one would dare risk disqualification.

“My first introduction into the team was for individual events and then I was lucky enough to pick up some relay heats in 2016 and since then that’s all I’ve thought about,” she said.

“It is amazing. Everything that it looks like on the TV is exactly what it’s like. It’s so much fun doing it with your friends by your side.

“I kind of got a late call-up to do the heat, I had no idea really. I was pretty naive.

“I kind of got in, did my heat, and I was happy with what I did. Then I watched the final and it was amazing.”

Madi Wilson and Bronte Campbell could get among the medals early in the competition.,

Under Olympic rules, anyone who swims in the heats gets the same medals as the finalists, but just not at the official ceremony.

Instead, heat swimmers get presented with their medals at the end of the competition at a private team ceremony.

“It’s really very special because ,if you’re in the final, you get to present the heat swimmers with their medals. It’s just so nice,” Wilson said.

“We’re all such close friends and we all get around each other and support each other and I know we’re not supposed to give each other a hug, but sometimes we can’t help it.”