The men's 100 metre breaststroke event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held from 27 to 28 July 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.

Great Britain's Adam Peaty and China's Qin Haiyang were the favourites going into the event, with other competitors including Italian Nicolò Martinenghi, Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands and Nic Fink of the United States. All of these swimmers progressed through to the final.

In the heats, Israel's Ron Polonsky lowered his country's national record to 1:00.00. In the semifinals Germany's Melvin Imoudu and Italy's Ludovico Viberti tied for the eighth fastest time, meaning they competed in a swim-off to determine who would progress to the final. Imoudu won the swim-off and so qualified for the final.

In the final, Qin led at halfway, but in what SwimSwam called a "frantic frenzy to the wall" Martinenghi finished first with a time of 59.03, 0.02 seconds ahead of Peaty and Fink who tied for silver with 59.05. Peaty's silver made him the first swimmer to win three Olympic medals in the event. A day after the race he tested positive for COVID-19, and shortly after that he announced his break from competitive swimming, saying "it’s just hurt too much this time".

Background Defending Olympic champion Peaty had taken a break from swimming and suffered a broken foot since his win at the 2020 Olympics. Nonetheless, he won bronze at the 2024 World Championships and registered the second fastest Olympic qualifying time of 57.94 at the 2024 British National Championships. China's Qin Haiyang had the fastest qualifying time of 57.69, which won him the gold medal at the 2023 World Championships.

Other competitors included Italian Nicolò Martinenghi, who won bronze at the previous Olympics and won gold at the 2022 World Championships; Arno Kamminga of the Netherlands, who won silver at the previous Olympics; and Nic Fink of the United States, who won the event at the 2022 World Short Course Championships and at the 2024 World Championships. Martinenghi, Kamminga and Fink all tied for silver at the 2023 World Championships.

Both SwimSwam and Swimming World predicted Qin would win gold and Peaty would take second. SwimSwam predicted Fink would take third, while Swimming World predicted it would be Martinenghi.

Prior to the event, the world and Olympic records were held by Adam Peaty of Great Britain, with times of 56.88 (2019) and 57.13 (2016), respectively.

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 59.49 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 59.79 for this event. In total, 21 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, 15 athletes qualified through universality places and two athletes qualified through achieving the OCT.

+ Top 10 fastest qualification times Swimmer Country Time Competition Qin Haiyang 57.69 2023 World Aquatics Championships Adam Peaty 57.94 2024 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships Nic Fink 58.36 2023 United States National Championships Arno Kamminga 58.68 2023 World Aquatics World Cup Nicolò Martinenghi 58.72 2023 World Aquatics Championships Evgenii Somov 2024 Atlanta Classic Sun Jiajun 58.73 2024 Chinese Championships Lucas Matzerath 58.74 2023 World Aquatics Championships Sam Williamson 58.80 2024 Australian Olympic Trials Melvin Imoudu 59.07 2024 Eindhoven Qualification Meet

Heats The event was held at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events. Five heats (preliminary rounds) took place on 27 July 2024, starting at 11:00. The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals. The Netherlands' Caspar Corbeau won the third heat to qualify with the fastest time of 59.04. Peaty qualified second with 59.18, while Martinenghi, Kamminga, Qin and Fink also qualified. Israel's Ron Polonsky qualified for the semifinal with a new national record of 1:00.00, which beat his previous national record of 1:00.07.

+ Results Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 1 3 6 Caspar Corbeau 2 4 4 Adam Peaty 3 4 7 Ilya Shymanovich 4 4 5 Nicolò Martinenghi 5 5 Arno Kamminga 6 4 1 James Wilby 7 5 6 Melvin Imoudu 8 4 3 Lucas Matzerath 9 5 4 Qin Haiyang 10 3 4 Nic Fink 11 4 8 Bernhard Reitshammer 12 3 1 Joshua Yong 13 3 5 Evgenii Somov 14 4 6 Charlie Swanson 15 3 2 Ludovico Blu Art Viberti 16 3 8 Ron Polonsky 1:00.00 , NR 17 5 3 Sun Jiajun 1:00.11 18 5 7 Choi Dong-yeol 1:00.17 19 3 7 Taku Taniguchi 1:00.20 20 4 2 Andrius Šidlauskas 1:00.29 21 5 2 Berkay Ömer Öğretir 1:00.36 22 5 8 Jan Kałusowski 1:00.40 23 5 1 Denis Petrashov 1:00.42 24 3 3 Sam Williamson 1:00.50 25 2 5 Anton McKee 1:00.62 26 2 6 Jadon Wuilliez 1:02.70 27 2 2 Adrian Robinson 1:02.79 28 2 3 Alexandre Grand'Pierre 1:02.85 29 2 1 Tasi Limtiaco 1:04.14 30 2 8 Abdulaziz Al-Obaidly 1:04.31 31 1 4 Steven Insixiengmay 1:04.64 32 1 3 Matthew Lawrence 1:04.95 33 2 7 Jonathan Raharvel 1:05.20 34 1 5 Micah Masei 1:05.95 35 1 6 Chadd Ning 1:09.85 2 4 Miguel de Lara DSQ

Semifinals Two semifinals took place on 27 July, starting at 21:12. The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final. Peaty won the first semifinal to qualify for the final with the fastest time of 58.86, while Qin won the second semifinal to qualify with the second fastest time of 58.93. Kamminga, Fink, Corbeau, Martinenghi and Lucas Metzerath of Germany also qualified. Germany's Melvin Imoudu and Italy's Ludovico Viberti tied for the eighth fastest time as they both swam 59.38, which meant they raced in a swim-off to determine who reached the final.

+ Results Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 1 1 4 Adam Peaty 58.86 2 2 2 Qin Haiyang 58.93 3 2 3 Arno Kamminga 59.12 4 1 2 Nic Fink 59.16 5 2 4 Caspar Corbeau 59.24 6 1 5 Nicolò Martinenghi 59.28 7 1 6 Lucas Matzerath 59.31 8 2 6 Melvin Imoudu 59.38 2 8 Ludovico Blu Art Viberti 10 2 5 Ilya Shymanovich 59.45 11 1 3 James Wilby 59.49 12 1 7 Joshua Yong 59.64 13 2 1 Evgenii Somov 14 1 1 Charlie Swanson 15 2 7 Bernhard Reitshammer 16 1 8 Ron Polonsky

Swim-off The swim-off took place at 22:24 on 27 July. Imoudu won with a time of 59.69 to Viberti's 59.90, so Imoudu qualified for the final.

+ Results Rank Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 1 4 Melvin Imoudu 59.69 2 5 Ludovico Blu Art Viberti 59.90

Final The final took place at 21:44 on 28 July. Qin led at the halfway (50 metre) mark, followed by Peaty and then Martinenghi. Over the rest of the race, Martinenghi moved up to first to win the gold with 59.03. Fink, who was fifth at the 50 metre mark, moved up to second and tied with Peaty for the silver medal, both clocking 59.05. Imoudu finished fourth with 59.11, while Qin dropped to seventh by the end of the race. SwimSwam called the finish of the race a "frantic frenzy to the wall", since the first six swimmers finished within 0.29 seconds of each other.

Peaty's silver made him the first swimmer to win three Olympic medals in the event, while it was Martinenghi's second medal in the event. In his post race interview, Martinenghi said winning the gold was "probably the best feeling of [his] life". In Peaty's post race interview, he cried and said "I’m not crying because I’ve come second. I’m crying because it took so much to get here." A day after the race he tested positive for COVID-19, and shortly after that he announced his break from competitive swimming, saying "it’s just hurt too much this time".

The winning time of 59.03 was almost two seconds slower than the winning time at the previous Olympics, which induced discussion over whether the Paris Olympic pool was "slow". The time was slower than the winning time in the event at every Olympics since 2004.

+ Results Rank Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 7 Nicolò Martinenghi 59.03 4 Adam Peaty 59.05 6 Nic Fink 4 8 Melvin Imoudu 59.11 5 1 Lucas Matzerath 59.30 6 3 Arno Kamminga 59.32 7 5 Qin Haiyang 59.50 8 2 Caspar Corbeau 59.98

+ Statistics Name 15 metre split (s) 50 metre split (s) 50–65 metre split (s) Time (s) Stroke rate (strokes/min) Nicolò Martinenghi 6.22 27.34 8.78 59.03 55.8 Adam Peaty 6.40 27.08 9.04 59.05 55.6 Nic Fink 5.96 27.45 8.85 59.05 49.4 Melvin Imoudu 6.46 27.37 9.27 59.11 49.7 Lucas Matzerath 6.48 27.56 8.94 59.30 55.7 Arno Kamminga 6.43 27.94 8.80 59.32 46.2 Qin Haiyang 6.14 27.03 9.23 59.50 53.0 Caspar Corbeau 6.18 27.91 8.78 59.98 45.3

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