The men's 100 metre freestyle event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held on 30 and 31 July 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.

Romanian David Popovici, China's Pan Zhanle, Australia's Kyle Chalmers, and France's Maxime Grousset were the favourites for the event, and they all progressed through to the final. In the heats, national records for Nepal and Vanuatu were broken.

In the final, Pan swam both the fastest opening split and fastest closing split to win with a new world record of 46.40. Chalmers won silver with 47.48 and Popovici won bronze with 47.49. All eight swimmers finished in under 48 seconds, which had never happened before in an Olympic final, and Pan's swim broke the first swimming world record of these Olympics. It was the biggest margin of victory in the event since the 1928 Olympics, and Pan later called it a "perfect performance".

Background In 2022, 17-year-old David Popovici of Romania had broken the world record in the event, lowering it to 46.86. Popovici also swam a 46.88 at the 2024 European Championships which was the second fastest qualifying time for the Olympics. At the 2024 World Championships, China's Pan Zhanle broke Popovici's record with a time of 46.80. That time had not been beaten since, and was the fastest qualification time.

Australian Kyle Chalmers was the 2016 Olympic champion and 2020 Olympic silver medallist. He won the World Championships in 2023, where he swam 47.15 to win gold; that time was the fourth fastest qualifying time for the Olympics. The third fastest qualifying time was held by the US' Jack Alexy, who swam 47.08 at the 2024 US Olympic Trials.

Other contenders were Maxime Grousset of France, the 2023 World Championships bronze medallist; Hungary's Nándor Németh, the 2024 World Championships bronze medallist; and Italy's Alessandro Miressi, the 2024 World Championships silver medallist. The US' Olympic champion Caeleb Dressel did not qualify for this event at these Games.

SwimSwam predicted that Chalmers would win, followed by Grousset in second and Popovici in third. Swimming World predicted Popovici would win, followed by Pan in second and Chalmers in third.

Qualification

Each National Olympic Committee (NOC) was permitted to enter a maximum of two qualified athletes in each individual event, but only if both of them had attained the Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT). For this event, the OQT was 48.34 seconds. World Aquatics then considered athletes qualifying through universality; NOCs were given one event entry for each gender, which could be used by any athlete regardless of qualification time, providing the spaces had not already been taken by athletes from that nation who had achieved the OQT. Finally, the rest of the spaces were filled by athletes who had met the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which was 48.58 for this event. In total, 32 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, 46 athletes qualified through universality places and one athlete qualified through achieving the OCT.

+ Top 10 fastest qualification times Swimmer Country Time Competition Pan Zhanle 46.80 2024 World Aquatics Championships David Popovici 46.88 2024 European Championships Jack Alexy 47.08 2024 United States Olympic Trials Kyle Chalmers 47.15 2023 World Aquatics Championships Chris Guiliano 47.25 2024 United States Olympic Trials Maxime Grousset 47.33 2024 French Elite Championships Matthew Richards 47.45 2023 World Aquatics Championships Nándor Németh 47.49 2024 European Championships Alessandro Miressi 47.54 2023 World Aquatics Championships Joshua Liendo 47.55 2024 Canadian Olympic Trials

Heats The event was held at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events. Ten heats took place on 30 July 2024, starting at 11:17. The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals. Alexy won the eighth heat with the fastest qualifying time of 47.57, while Grousset qualified with the second fastest time of 47.70. Popovici, Németh, Chalmers, Miressi and Pan all qualified. Pan Zhanle qualified with the joint thirteenth fastest qualifying time of 48.40, which SwimSwam commented "wasn’t a great swim" for him. Between the heats and semifinals of this event, Pan broke the event's Olympic record with his split of the 4 × 100 metre freestyle relay.

South Korean Hwang Sun-woo, who qualified with the sixteenth fastest qualifying time, withdrew from the semifinals in favour of resting for the 4 × 200 metre freestyle relay. This allowed Australian William Yang to compete in the semifinals instead. Nepal's Alexander Shah lowered his country's national record to 51.91, Johnathan Silas lowered Vanuatu's national record to 59.38, and Jayhan Odlum-Smith lowered Saint Lucia's national record to 50.39.

+ Results Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 1 8 4 Jack Alexy 47.57 2 8 5 Maxime Grousset 47.70 3 9 4 David Popovici 47.92 4 9 3 Nándor Németh 47.93 5 8 6 Jordan Crooks 48.01 6 10 5 Kyle Chalmers 48.07 7 8 3 Alessandro Miressi 48.24 8 9 5 Chris Guiliano 48.25 10 2 Josha Salchow 48.25 10 9 6 Andrej Barna 48.34 10 6 Joshua Liendo 48.34 12 10 7 Guilherme Caribé 48.35 13 8 7 Velimir Stjepanović 48.40 10 3 Matthew Richards 48.40 10 4 Pan Zhanle 48.40 16 8 2 Hwang Sun-woo 48.41 , 17 10 8 William Yang 48.46 18 9 1 Jacob Whittle 48.47 19 7 8 Sergio de Celis 48.49 20 8 1 Danas Rapšys 48.53 21 7 6 Tomer Frankel 48.66 22 10 1 Wang Haoyu 48.79 23 7 4 Sean Niewold 48.82 7 5 Rafael Fente-Damers 48.82 9 8 Leonardo Deplano 48.82 26 5 5 Lamar Taylor 48.84 6 4 Mikel Schreuders 48.84 28 9 7 Diogo Ribeiro 48.88 29 7 2 Yuri Kisil 49.06 30 6 5 Ralph Daleiden 49.12 31 7 7 Cameron Gray 49.24 32 7 1 Jorge Iga 49.28 33 8 8 Nikola Miljenić 49.34 34 7 3 Dylan Carter 49.35 35 9 2 Marcelo Chierighini 49.38 36 6 7 Jakub Majerski 49.44 37 6 2 Alberto Mestre 49.51 38 6 3 Jonathan Tan 49.60 39 6 1 Daniel Gracík 49.65 40 6 6 Björn Seeliger 49.70 41 6 8 Adilbek Mussin 49.92 42 5 3 Simon Doueihy 50.10 43 4 1 Nikolas Antoniou 50.35 44 4 3 Jayhan Odlum-Smith 50.39 NR 4 5 Yousuf Al-Matrooshi 50.39 NR 46 5 4 Jack Kirby 50.42 47 4 4 Leo Nolles 50.58 48 5 8 Samyar Abdoli 50.63 49 5 6 Dulyawat Kaewsriyong 50.64 50 4 8 Enkhtamir Batbayar 50.81 51 4 2 Matthieu Seye 50.84 52 4 6 Harry Stacey 51.12 53 3 6 Zaid Al-Sarraj 51.21 54 4 7 Kyle Abeysinghe 51.42 55 5 7 Ian Ho 51.46 56 5 2 Artur Barseghyan 51.54 57 5 1 Javier Núñez 51.55 58 3 4 Adell Sabovic 51.77 NR 59 3 1 Alexander Shah 51.91 NR 60 2 5 Ovesh Purahoo 52.22 61 3 5 Musa Žalaýew 52.29 62 3 7 Grisi Koxhaku 52.32 63 3 8 Mohamad Zubaid 52.35 64 3 3 Henrique Mascarenhas 52.52 65 2 4 Nixon Hernández 52.73 66 3 2 Johann Stickland 52.94 67 2 3 Antoine De Lapparent 52.95 68 2 2 Irvin Hoost 52.99 69 2 6 Samiul Islam Rafi 53.10 70 2 7 Issa Al-Adawi 53.19 71 2 1 Collins Saliboko 53.38 72 1 4 Josh Tarere 53.85 73 1 6 Phone Pyae Han 55.56 74 1 3 Sangay Tenzin 56.08 75 2 8 Yousef Abubaker 56.19 76 1 5 Alexien Kouma 56.34 77 1 2 Johnathan Silas 59.38 NR 78 1 7 Giorgio Kamogne 79 1 1 Hadji Hassane

Semifinals Two semifinals took place on 30 July, starting at 20:30. The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final. Chalmers won the first heat to qualify with the second fastest time of 47.58, while Pan won the second heat to qualify with the fastest time of 47.21. The remaining finalists were: Németh, Grousset, Popovici, Alexy, the US' Chris Guiliano and Germany's Josha Salchow.

+ Results Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 1 2 8 Pan Zhanle 47.21 2 1 3 Kyle Chalmers 47.58 3 1 5 Nándor Németh 47.61 4 1 4 Maxime Grousset 47.63 5 2 5 David Popovici 47.66 6 2 4 Jack Alexy 47.68 7 1 6 Chris Guiliano 47.72 8 2 2 Josha Salchow 47.94 9 2 6 Alessandro Miressi 47.95 10 1 7 Guilherme Caribé 48.03 11 2 7 Josh Liendo 48.06 12 1 1 Matthew Richards 48.09 13 2 3 Jordan Crooks 48.10 14 1 2 Andrej Barna 48.11 15 1 8 William Yang 48.42 16 2 1 Velimir Stjepanović 48.78

Final

Race

The final took place at 22:39 on 31 July. Pan led the race from start to finish to claim a new world record of 46.40, which broke his previous world record of 46.80 set at the 2024 World Championships. He swam both the fastest opening half split of 22.28 and the fastest closing half split of 24.12. Chalmers was last at the halfway turn, but he swam the second fastest closing 50 metres to win silver with 47.48—his third Olympic medal in the event. Popovici finished 0.01 seconds behind Chalmers with 47.49 to win bronze, and Németh finished 0.01 seconds behind Popovici to finish fourth with 47.50. Salchow finished sixth with a German record of 47.80. All eight swimmers finished in under 48 seconds, which had never happened before in an Olympic final, and SwimSwam called it an "unbelievable race".

Pan's swim broke the first swimming world record of these Olympics, which re-ignited discussions over whether the Paris Olympic pool was "slow" or not. It was the biggest margin of victory in the event since the 1928 Olympics, and it was China's first medal in the event. After the race, Pan, through a translator, called the race a "perfect performance".

+ Results Rank Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 4 Pan Zhanle 46.40 WR 5 Kyle Chalmers 47.48 2 David Popovici 47.49 4 3 Nándor Németh 47.50 5 6 Maxime Grousset 47.71 6 8 Josha Salchow 47.80 NR 7 7 Jack Alexy 47.96 8 1 Chris Guiliano 47.98

+ Statistics Name 15 metre split (s) 50 metre split (s) 50–65 metre split (s) Time (s) Stroke rate (strokes/min) Pan Zhanle 5.45 22.28 6.57 46.40 51.6 Kyle Chalmers 5.61 23.03 6.60 47.48 52.1 David Popovici 5.66 22.94 6.61 47.49 51.7 Nándor Németh 5.61 22.90 6.71 47.50 54.8 Maxime Grousset 5.33 22.61 6.60 47.71 53.0 Josha Salchow 5.62 22.93 6.88 47.80 50.6 Jack Alexy 5.55 22.63 6.82 47.96 48.0 Chris Guiliano 5.40 22.82 6.67 47.98 49.6

Further reading

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