So I guess Zhang Zhanshuo decided to focus on the 400 free instead of the 400 IM? That's unfortunate because I believe he would've had a better shot at making the final in the 400IM. It's also unfortunate because we lose another athlete who had the 400 IM OQT and now with just over 2 months to go in the qualification period, we have roughly 9 ENTRIES in the men's 400 IM:
NOC
ATHLETE 1
QUALIFICATION EVENT
RESULT
ATHLETE 2
QUALIFICATION EVENT
RESULT
Australia
1
SMITH Brendon
World Aquatics Championships 2023
OQT
4:10.37
Canada
0
WIGGINTON Lorne
World Aquatics Junior Swimming Championships 2023
OCT
4:12.81
France
1
MARCHAND Léon
World Aquatics Championships 2023
OQT
4:02.50
Germany
1
BÜSSING Cedric
Eindhoven Qualification Meet 2024
OQT
4:12.33
Great Britain
1
LITCHFIELD Max
British National Championships 2024
OQT
4:09.14
Hungary
0
Maximum Quota exceeded, Athlete 1
TBD
OCT
X
Italy
1
RAZZETTI Alberto
Italian Winter National Championships 2023
OQT
4:09.29
Japan
1
MATSUSHITA Tomoyuki
Japan Selection Trial for Olympic Games 2024
OQT
4:10.04
New Zealand
1
CLAREBURT Lewis
World Aquatics Championships 2024
OQT
4:09.72
South Africa
0
SATES Matt
World Aquatics Swimming World Cup Athens 2023
OCT
4:13.38
United States
2
Maximum Quota exceeded, Athlete 1
TBD
OQT
X
Maximum Quota exceeded, Athlete 2
TBD
OQT
X
It's also quite possible that Brendon Smith wouldn't qualify at Australian trials given his form this year. Japan might add one of Seto or Honda as their 2nd entry and Wigginton, Gabor Zombori, and Sates could be added through OCTs. However, it's quite likely that we'll have even fewer entries than the women's 200m butterfly from Tokyo where their were only 17 entries.
This event had the misfortune of having an insanely fast heats in Tokyo that nuked the qualifying time from 4:15.84 to 4:12.50. If AQUA followed their old rules where they set the OQT as the 16th fastest swimmer in the heats instead of the 14th fastest swimmer, the new qualifying time would've been 4:15.76 instead.