Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre freestyle

Men's 200 metre freestyle at the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad
Paris La Défense Arena after it was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events
Venue	Paris La Défense Arena
Dates	28 July 2024 (Heats and Semis) 29 July 2024 (Final)
Competitors	25 from 18 nations
Winning time	1:44.72
Medalists
David Popovici  Romania Matthew Richards  Great Britain Luke Hobson  United States

The men's 200 metre freestyle event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held on 28 and 29 July 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events. Since an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, each competitor had to swim four lengths of the pool.

Romanian David Popovici was the favourite going into the event, while Matt Richards and Duncan Scott of Great Britain, Hwang Sun-woo of South Korea, Danas Rapšys of Lithuania, Lukas Märtens of Germany and the USA's Luke Hobson were also in contention. All except Sun-woo made it through to the final.

In the final, Märtens led up until the final turn, when Hobson took the lead. Richards overtook him during the final length, and at 195 metres the standings were: Richards in first, Hobson in second and Popovici in third. Over the final five metres Popovici overtook both to win gold with a time of 1:44.72, while Richards won silver with 1:44.74 and Hobson won bronze with 1:44.79. The 0.02 margin of victory was the smallest ever seen in this event at the Olympics, and Popovici's gold was the first Olympic medal for Romania since 2004.

Background

Romanian David Popovici won the event at the 2022 World Championships, while Great Britain's Matt Richards won it at the 2023 Championships. Duncan Scott, also from Great Britain, won silver at the 2023 Championships. South Korea's Hwang Sun-woo won the 2024 World Championships, ahead of Lithuania's Danas Rapšys in second and the USA's Luke Hobson in third. Great Britain's defending Olympic champion Tom Dean was not returning to defend his title, as Richards and Scott had secured Great Britain's two qualification spots ahead of him.

Popovici won the 2024 European Championships with a time of 1:43:13, which was the fastest time of the season ahead of German Lukas Märtens' time of 1:44:14. Both SwimSwam and Swimming World predicted Popovici would win the event.

Qualification

Further information: Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics – 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 1:46.26. 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 1:46.79 for this event. In total, 21 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, four athletes qualified through universality places and three athletes qualified through achieving the OCT.

Heats

Four heats took place on 28 July 2024, starting at 11:00. The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals. Popovici led heat four from beginning to end to finish with the fastest qualifying time of 1:45.65, while Rapšys won heat three with the second fastest qualifying time of 1:45.91. Belgian Lucas Henveaux swam a national record of 1:46.04 to qualify third.

Results

Rank	Heat	Lane	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Notes
1	4	4	David Popovici	Romania	1:45.65	Q
2	3	3	Danas Rapšys	Lithuania	1:45.91	Q
3	4	8	Lucas Henveaux	Belgium	1:46.04	Q, NR
4	4	5	Hwang Sun-woo	South Korea	1:46.13	Q
5	2	5	Maximillian Giuliani	Australia	1:46.15	Q
6	2	4	Matthew Richards	Great Britain	1:46.19	Q
7	2	3	Katsuhiro Matsumoto	Japan	1:46.23	Q
	4	3	Luke Hobson	United States	1:46.23	Q
9	4	2	Thomas Neill	Australia	1:46.27	Q
10	3	4	Lukas Märtens	Germany	1:46.33	Q
11	3	5	Duncan Scott	Great Britain	1:46.34	Q
12	2	6	Kim Woo-min	South Korea	1:46.64	Q
13	2	2	Rafael Miroslaw	Germany	1:46.81	Q
14	2	1	Denis Loktev	Israel	1:47.01	Q
15	3	2	Alessandro Ragaini	Italy	1:47.31	Q
16	3	7	Filippo Megli	Italy	1:47.39	Q
17	2	8	Antonio Djakovic	Switzerland	1:47.46
18	1	4	Velimir Stjepanovic	Serbia	1:47.56
19	3	6	Chris Guiliano	United States	1:47.60
20	3	8	Jorge Iga	Mexico	1:48.38
21	1	5	Saso Boskan	Slovenia	1:48.75
22	4	6	Pan Zhanle	China	1:49.47
23	4	7	Ji Xinjie	China	1:49.88
24	1	3	Omar Abbass	Syria	1:53.01
25	1	6	Muhammad Ahmed Durrani	Pakistan	1:58.67
	4	1	Guilherme Costa	Brazil	DNS
	3	1	Nandor Nemeth	Hungary	DNS
	2	7	Felix Auböck	Austria	DNS

Semifinals

Two semifinals took place on 28 July, starting at 20:46. The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final. Popovici led from beginning to end to win the second semifinal with the fastest qualifying time of 1:44.53, while Scott behind him with the second fastest qualifying time of 1:44.94. Hobson won the first semifinal with 1:45.19 which was the third fastest qualifying time. Hobson, Märtens, Australian Maximillian Giuliani, Rapšys, Richards and Japan's Katsuhiro Matsumoto also qualified. Sun-woo did not qualify.

Results

Rank	Heat	Lane	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Notes
1	2	4	David Popovici	Romania	1:44.53	Q
2	2	7	Duncan Scott	Great Britain	1:44.94	Q
3	1	6	Luke Hobson	United States	1:45.19	Q
4	1	2	Lukas Märtens	Germany	1:45.36	Q
5	2	3	Maximillian Giuliani	Australia	1:45.37	Q
6	1	4	Danas Rapšys	Lithuania	1:45.48	Q
7	1	3	Matthew Richards	Great Britain	1:45.63	Q
8	2	6	Katsuhiro Matsumoto	Japan	1:45.88	Q
9	1	5	Hwang Sun-woo	South Korea	1:45.92
10	2	2	Thomas Neill	Australia	1:46.18
11	2	5	Lucas Henveaux	Belgium	1:46.20
12	1	7	Kim Woo-min	South Korea	1:46.58
13	1	8	Filippo Megli	Italy	1:46.87
14	2	8	Alessandro Ragaini	Italy	1:47.08
15	2	1	Rafael Miroslaw	Germany	1:47.34
16	1	1	Denis Loktev	Israel	1:47.93

Final

External videos
Men's 200 metre freestyle final

The final took place at 20:41 on 29 July. After Richards had the fastest start, Märtens overtook him and retained the lead up until the 150 metre mark—three quarters of the way through the race. SwimSwam later opined that Märtens lost his chance at a medal due to his slow last tumble turn and underwater.

At 165 metres Hobson had taken the lead, but by 175 metres Richards was first. At the 195 metre mark Richards was first, Hobson was second and Popovici was third. In what SwimSwam called a "wild finish", Popovici won gold with a time of 1:44.72, 0.02 seconds ahead of Richards in second, who was in turn 0.05 seconds ahead of Hobson who placed third. The 0.02 margin of victory was the smallest ever seen in this event at the Olympics.

During the race, Hobson had the fastest turns and underwaters, while Popovici was the fastest during the front crawl sections. Popovici's gold was the first Olympic medal for Romania since 2004, and after the race he said: "I don’t know how to describe it. It’s so simple, yet so beautiful."

Results

Rank	Lane	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Notes
	4	David Popovici	Romania	1:44.72
	1	Matthew Richards	Great Britain	1:44.74
	3	Luke Hobson	United States	1:44.79
4	5	Duncan Scott	Great Britain	1:44.87
5	6	Lukas Märtens	Germany	1:45.46
5	7	Danas Rapšys	Lithuania	1:45.46
7	2	Maximillian Giuliani	Australia	1:45.57
8	8	Katsuhiro Matsumoto	Japan	1:46.26

Statistics

Name	50 metre split	100 metre split	150 metre split	Time	Stroke rate (strokes/min)
David Popovici	00:24.10	00:51.12	01:17.98	1:44.72	44.6
Matthew Richards	00:24.16	00:50.92	01:17.99	1:44.74	40.9
Luke Hobson	00:24.70	00:51.37	01:18.00	1:44.79	40.3
Duncan Scott	00:24.46	00:51.21	01:18.10	1:44.87	45.5
Lukas Märtens	00:24.05	00:50.52	01:17.61	1:45.46	44.2
Danas Rapšys	00:24.67	00:51.23	01:18.37	1:45.46	42.4
Maximillian Giuliani	00:24.61	00:51.66	01:18.51	1:45.57	42.2
Katsuhiro Matsumoto	00:24.36	00:51.12	01:18.87	1:46.26	38.4