The women's 100-metre backstroke event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held from 29 to 30 July 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.

The US' Regan Smith and Australia's defending champion Kaylee McKeown were the favourites to win the event, with Canada's Kylie Masse and the US' Katharine Berkoff also likely medallists. In the heats, Spain's Carmen Weiler set her country's national record at 59.57. In the final, Smith and Masse led at the halfway point, but McKeown ended up winning the gold with a new Olympic record of 57.33. Smith won silver and Berkoff won bronze.

Background The US' defending Olympic bronze medallist and 2022 World Champion Regan Smith broke the world record at the 2024 US Olympic Trials with a time of 57.13. Defending Olympic champion Kaylee McKeown from Australia held the previous world record, and won the event at the 2023 World Championships. She swam 57.41 at the Australian Olympic Trials. Canada's Kylie Massewon the silver medal at the previous Olympics in the event, and she finished second at the 2023 Championships. Other contenders included the US' Katharine Berkoff, who swam 57.83 at the US Trials, and Australia's Iona Anderson, who swam 58.43 at the Australian Trials. Both SwimSwam and Swimming World predicted that Smith would win, McKeown would come second and Berkoff would come third.

The event was held at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.

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 59.99 seconds. World Aquatics then filled the rest of the event places with 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. In total, 20 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, while 16 athletes qualified through universality places.

+ Top 10 fastest qualification times Swimmer Country Time Competition Regan Smith 57.13 2024 United States Olympic Trials Kaylee McKeown 57.33 2023 World Aquatics World Cup Katharine Berkoff 57.83 2024 United States Olympic Trials Kylie Masse 57.94 2024 Canadian Olympic Trials Iona Anderson 58.43 2024 Australian Olympic Trials Emma Terebo 58.79 2024 French Elite Championships Ingrid Wilm 58.80 2024 Canadian Olympic Trials Wan Letian 59.02 2024 Chinese Championships Danielle Hill 59.11 2024 Irish Championships Béryl Gastaldello 59.17 2024 French Elite Championships

Heats Five heats (preliminary rounds) took place on 29 July 2024, starting at 11:13. The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals. Berkoff qualified with the fastest time of 57.99, Smith qualified in second and McKeown in third. Carmen Weiler broke Spain's national record by 0.19 seconds, setting it at 59.57 to qualify.

+ Results Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 1 3 4 Katharine Berkoff 2 5 4 Regan Smith 3 4 4 Kaylee McKeown 4 5 5 Kylie Masse 5 3 5 Emma Terebo 6 5 6 Béryl Gastaldello 7 4 5 Iona Anderson 8 4 2 Carmen Weiler , NR 9 4 7 Roos Vanotterdijk 10 3 7 Kira Toussaint 11 4 3 Wan Letian 12 5 3 Ingrid Wilm 1:00.06 13 5 2 Maaike de Waard 1:00.12 14 4 6 Wang Xue'er 1:00.15 15 4 1 Louise Hansson 1:00.26 16 3 3 Danielle Hill 1:00.40 17 5 7 Adela Piskorska 1:00.47 18 3 2 Kathleen Dawson 1:00.69 19 3 6 Medi Eira Harris 1:00.85 20 5 1 Anastasiya Shkurdai 1:00.94 21 3 1 Celia Pulido 1:01.10 22 5 8 Nika Sharafutdinova 1:01.47 23 4 8 Emma Harvey 1:01.78 24 3 8 Gabriela Georgieva 1:02.16 25 2 5 Aviv Barzelay 1:02.30 26 2 4 Xeniya Ignatova 1:02.51 27 2 6 Zuri Ferguson 1:02.75 28 2 2 Lucero Mejía 1:03.42 29 2 3 Cindy Cheung 1:03.45 30 1 4 Ganga Seneviratne 1:04.26 31 2 8 Amani Al-Obaidli 1:04.27NR 32 2 1 Celina Márquez 1:04.55 33 2 7 Elizabeth Jiménez 1:04.99 34 1 3 Denise Donelli 1:08.73 35 1 5 Aýnura Primowa 1:10.17 36 1 6 Maleek Al-Mukhtar 1:10.99

Semifinals Two semifinals took place on 29 July, starting at 21:01. The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final. Smith won the first semifinal with a time of 57.97 seconds, while McKeown won the second in 57.99.

+ Results Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 1 1 4 Regan Smith 57.97 2 2 5 Kaylee McKeown 57.99 3 2 4 Katharine Berkoff 58.27 4 2 6 Iona Anderson 58.63 5 1 5 Kylie Masse 58.82 6 1 7 Ingrid Wilm 59.10 7 1 3 Béryl Gastaldello 59.29 8 2 3 Emma Terebo 59.50 9 1 6 Carmen Weiler 59.72 10 2 2 Roos Vanotterdijk 59.86 11 1 1 Wang Xue'er 59.89 12 2 7 Wan Letian 13 2 1 Maaike de Waard 14 1 2 Kira Toussaint 15 2 8 Louise Hansson 16 1 8 Danielle Hill

Final The final took place at 21:00 on 30 July. Smith and Masse led at the 50 metre mark, both pushing off the halfway wall with a split time of 28.02. Berkoff split third with 28.05 and McKeown fourth with 28.08. Over the last 50 metres, McKeown elevated herself to first to win the gold medal with a time of 57.33 seconds. Smith won the silver with 57.66, Berkoff won bronze with 57.98 and Masse finished fourth.

Smith spent the longest underwater and had the fastest average underwater pace, while McKeown had the fastest pace during the non-underwater sections. McKeown did 70 strokes throughout the race, which was the least of the top 4 swimmers; Masse did 75, Smith did 76 and Berkoff did 77.

McKeown's winning time of 57.33 broke her own Olympic Record from Tokyo, matched her former world record in the event and won her her fourth gold medal. She later went on to win the 200 metre backstroke as well, which made her the first swimmer to win both the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke events at consecutive Olympics. Later at the Paris Games, Smith broke McKeown's Olympic record with a time of 57.28, which she swam in the opening leg of the women's 4 × 100 metre medley relay. Berkoff's bronze was the US' 3000th Olympic medal, and their 600th swimming medal.

+ Results Rank Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 5 Kaylee McKeown 57.33 OR, =OC 4 Regan Smith 57.66 3 Katharine Berkoff 57.98 4 2 Kylie Masse 58.29 5 6 Iona Anderson 58.98 6 7 Ingrid Wilm 59.25 7 8 Emma Terebo 59.40 8 1 Béryl Gastaldello 59.80

+ Statistics Name 15 metre split (s) 50 metre split (s) 50–65 metre split (s) Time (s) Stroke rate (strokes/min) Kaylee McKeown 6.67 28.08 7.52 57.33 48.2 Regan Smith 6.69 28.02 7.45 57.66 53.1 Katharine Berkoff 6.75 28.05 7.39 57.98 53.8 Kylie Masse 6.81 28.02 7.70 58.29 50.8 Iona Anderson 7.17 28.47 8.09 58.98 50.7 Ingrid Wilm 6.87 28.69 8.07 59.25 44.2 Emma Terebo 7.18 28.79 8.39 59.40 49.0 Béryl Gastaldello 6.86 28.80 8.06 59.80 49.2

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