The opening session of the World Swimming Championships in Kazan, Russia, "has been thrown into chaos after an electronic timing fault in the heats of the women's 4x100m freestyle relay," according to the SYDNEY MORNING HERALD. The official timer showed the world champion Americans "finishing seventh in the opening heat, which shocked the commentators who quite correctly surmised that the defending world champions could not make the final" -- the first time in their history -- with "such a performance." The shocks "did not end there as the Olympic champions Australia, resting their star swimmers, in the second heat were beaten by Hong Kong." Well "so the commentators thought." The Hong Kong swimmers in the second heat were actually the U.S., who "pipped the Australian quartet of Emily Seebohm, Madison Wilson, Melanie Wright and Bronte Barratt by 0.34 of a second." The pre-meet seedings were ignored as Australia and the U.S. "swam in the outside lanes of eight and nine in the second heat." As the top two squads, the Australians should have swam in lane four of heat one, while the Americans "should have held the same lane in heat two." This is not the "first technical fault" of the championships after Russia's Aleksandra Patskevich was also "left in shock" after the underwater speaker broke during the combined synchronized swimming team performance in the pool. She said, "We could hear only some crackling and not the music" (SMH, 8/2).
