The first prelims session of the 2022 FINA World Championships featured seven individual events and two relay teams take stage. All 14 Americans who swam individual events qualified for second swims, while the U.S. men’s 4x100-meter freestyle relay team and U.S. women’s 4x100m freestyle relay team will compete in tonight’s finals as the first and second seeds, respectively.

More from the first session in Budapest:

Women’s 200m Individual Medley
• Tonight’s semifinals will feature Alex Walsh as first seed and Leah Hayes as second seed.
• Walsh won her heat in 2:09.41. Hayes won her heat in 2:09.81. 
• Hayes shaved 0.18 seconds off her personal best. 
• Walsh and Hayes were the only swimmers to go sub-2:10 in prelims.
• Hayes will be the youngest swimmer in the semifinals.

Men’s 400m Freestyle
• Kiearn Smith and Trey Freeman move on to finals as the fifth and seventh seeds, respectively.
• Freeman’s time of 3:46.12 is a new personal best by 1.23 seconds.
• Smith’s time of 3:45.70 is the fourth-fastest swim of his career and the fourth time he has gone under 3:46.
• Should Freeman break 3:46 in a future swim at the meet, he would become the 14th American male to go 3:45. 

Women’s 100m Butterfly
• Torri Huske will enter semifinals as the top seed, followed by Claire Curzan as the fourth seed.
• Huske posted a 56.82 and Curzan posted a 57.48 to finish 1-2 in their heat.
• Huske was 0.03 seconds under world record place at the 50-meter mark.
• Both Huske and Curzan made their FINA World Championships debut with their prelims swims.

Men’s 50m Butterfly
• Caeleb Dressel and Michael Andrew move on to semifinals. Dressel won his heat in 22.88, Andrew won his heat in 22.89.
• The semifinals will feature Dressel as the second seed (only 0.01 seconds behind Trinidad and Tobago’s Dylan Carter) and Andrew as the fourth seed. 
• Andrew’s time was only 0.09 seconds off his personal best.  

Women’s 400m Freestyle
• Katie Ledecky moves on to finals as the first seed, followed by Leah Smith as the fifth seed.
• Ledecky was 3:59.79, making her the only swimmer under 4:00.
• Smith’s time of 4:04.43 was the 14th-fastest swim of her career. 
• Ledecky and Smith have medaled together in the event in each of the last two FINA World Championships, and will have a chance to add a third medal in the event to each of their respective careers.

Men’s 100m Breaststroke
• Nic Fink (58.81) and Andrew (58.96) move on to the semifinals as the second and third seeds. 
• The only swimmer to best the Americans was the Netherlands’ Arno Kamminga, who went 58.69. 
• Andrew completes his double on the morning (50m butterfly and 100m breaststroke) in roughly 45 minutes.  

Men’s 400m Individual Medley
• Foster and Kalisz advance to the night’s finals as the second and third seed. Foster went 4:09.60 and Kalisz went 4:10.32. They only trail France’s Leon Marchand, who went 4:09.09.
• Foster’s time is the third-fastest performance in the world this year. 
• Kalisz’s swim was .18 seconds faster than his finals swim at the 2022 Phillips 66 International Team Trials. 
• The swim marks Foster’s first time competing at a long-course, senior-level international meet.

Women’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay
• U.S. posted a 3:35.23, which was the second-fastest performance behind Australia’s 3:33.74.
• Splits: Kate Douglass, 54.19; Mallory Comerford, 53.86; Erika Brown, 53.29; Natalie Hinds, 53.89
• Should the U.S. medal in the final, it would be the first-career medals in FINA World Championships competitions for Douglass, Brown and Hinds. A medal would give Comerford the eighth of her career at worlds, which would bump her up to a tie for fifth on the all-time list of female American medalists at the competition.

Men’s 4x100m Freestyle Relay
• U.S. claims top seed with a 3:10.80. The next-closest team was Australia with a 3:11.97.
• Splits: Hunter Armstrong, 48.34; Ryan Held, 47.13; Justin Ress, 47.57; Brooks Curry, 47.76
• With a U.S. medal in the finals, all four U.S. prelims swimmers would win their first FINA World Championships.
• Should the U.S. win gold in the finals, it would be the team’s third-consecutive world title.

Today’s semifinals and finals session will feature finals of the men’s 400m freestyle, women’s 400m freestyle, men’s 400m individual medley and the men’s and women’s 4x100m freestyle relay. All additional information can be found at www.usaswimming.org/2022Worlds.