2024 Paris Olympics Day 5 Finals: Fun Facts

Arguably the best session we’ve seen so far in the Paris Olympics, tonight’s session did not disappoint. We saw our first world record with Pan Zhanle’s 46.40 100 freestyle (yes, you read that right. 46.40), multiple Olympic records, with Leon Marchand in the men’s 200 butterfly and the 200 breaststroke, and also stellar swims from Sarah Sjostrom in the 100 freestyle and Katie Ledecky in the women’s 1500 freestyle. The United States added their first gold medal to their tally since night one. There were many exciting semifinal races, hopefully leading to an exciting few finals tomorrow night, with these three 200s and the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay. Here’s some fun facts about the day 5 finals session:

WOMEN’S 100 FREESTYLE

• Sarah Sjostrom became the first medalist in the history of the women’s 100 freestyle to win medals in non-consecutive Olympics. She won a bronze medal in the Rio Games, and after winning this year’s gold medal, she joins six other swimmers who have won multiple Olympic medals. 
• Siobhan Haughey is the first woman in swimming history to win medals in both the 100 and 200 freestyles at two back-to-back games. She won silver in Tokyo in both events, and she’ll bring home two bronze medals from the Paris games. With this 100 freestyle medal, Haughey has won her fourth Olympic medal, and she remains as Hong Kong’s only medalist in swimming. 
• With her 52.29 silver-medal performance, Torri Huske became the 11th fastest swimmer in the event’s history. She became the second fastest American behind Simone Manuel, who holds the American record in the 100 freestyle. 

MEN’S 200 BUTTERFLY

• Leon Marchand, with his new Olympic record time of 1:51.21, became the second-fastest swimmer of all time in this event. His new time places him ahead of Michael Phelps. 
• This is the first time France has ever won the 200 butterfly, and the first time since 2000 that Japan has not medaled in the event.
• Bronze medalist Ilya Kharun becomes Canada’s first medalist in the men’s 200 butterfly, and their first overall medalist since 2012. The 19-year-old finished with a time of 1:52.80, breaking his old record in the process and bumping him up to the seventh fastest performer of all time.
• Switzerland’s Noe Ponti tied his own Swiss national record of 1:54.14, which he set in the semifinals yesterday. Martin Espernberger of Austria also took down a national record, swimming a 1:54.17 to finish sixth in the Olympic final.

WOMEN’S 200 BUTTERFLY

• Boglarka Kapas, the 14th place finisher in this year’s semifinals, holds the special honor of being able to compete in the same finals session as her husband, fellow Hungarian swimmer Adam Telegdy. Telegdy placed 13th in the 200 backstroke, swimming a 1:57.58 out of semifinal #1. 
• 18-year-old Lana Pudar became Bosnia and Herzegovina’s best-ever finisher in this event, earning a 12th place finish with a time of 2:08.74. The country’s previous best Olympic performance came from 1992, where Anja Margetić placed 27th.
• If Regan Smith or Alex Shackell make the podium tomorrow night, they’ll help the United States to their first back-to-back Olympic podium finish since 1988 (Mary T. Meagher) and 1992 (Summer Sanders). If they both earn medals, this Olympics will be the second Games in a row where the United States has featured both swimmers on the podium (Tokyo had Smith and Hali Flickinger in Silver/Bronze).
• Zhang Yufei has the chance to repeat her gold medal from Tokyo. If she does so, she’ll be the first woman in history to win the event twice.

WOMEN’S 1500 FREESTYLE

• Katie Ledecky repeated her win from Tokyo, swimming a time of 15:30.02. This is a new Olympic record, and is the eighth fastest performance of all time. After this swim, Ledecky is now tied for the most-ever Olympic gold medals and total medals won by an American woman. 
• With this time, Ledecky claims the top 20 performances in the event, bumping out Lotte Friis’ 2013 performance of 15:38.88. 
• Anastasiia Kirpichnikova (France, Silver) and Isabel Gose (Germany, Bronze) both won their first Olympic medals, with Gose winning Germany’s second medal in the 1500 freestyle. Kirpichnikova became the fourth best performer of all time in this event, and Gose became the sixth. 

MEN’S 200 BACKSTROKE

• If fourth-seed Lukas Märtens wins a medal during tomorrow’s final, he will be the first male swimmer to win medals in both the 400 freestyle and the 200 backstroke during the same games. (Fellow German swimmer Dagmar Hase completed the medal double in 1992, winning gold in the 400 free and silver in the 200 back)
• With Ryan Murphy placing 10th in the semifinals and Luke Greenbank’s DQ in this morning’s prelims, none of the Tokyo medalists will defend their medals in Paris. This opens the door for many countries to win their first medals in this event. 
• Countries like Greece (Apostolos Christou), Switzerland (Roman Mityukov), and South Africa (Pieter Coetze) will all have their first finalists in the men’s 200 backstroke. 

WOMEN’S 200 BREASTSTROKE

• Tatjana Smith, Lilly King, and Satomi Suzuki all have a chance to win their second medals in this event, with Smith being in contention to win her second gold. If she wins, she’ll join Rebecca Soni as the only swimmer in Olympic history to win in back-to-back years.
• The top three finalists, Kate Douglass, Smith, and Tes Schouten, all had the same reaction time of 0.67 seconds off the blocks.
• If Tes Schouten medals tomorrow night, she will be the first medalist from the Netherlands to win a medal since Nel van Vliet, who won gold in 1948.

MEN’S 200 BREASTSTROKE

• In winning both the 200 butterfly and the 200 breaststroke in the same night, Marchand becomes the first swimmer to win two individual events in the same night since East Germany’s Kornelia Ender, who swam the 200 freestyle and 100 butterfly in 1976. Aside from Ender and Marchand, only two other swimmers have accomplished the same feat: Alfréd Hajós in 1896 (swimming the 1200 freestyle and the 100 freestyle for Hungary), and Fred Lane in 1900 (swimming the 200 freestyle and the 200 meter obstacle course race for Australia). 
• On top of this already amazing feat of winning two golds in the same night, Marchand broke the Olympic record in both events, despite being up against past and present world record holders.
• Zac Stubblety-Cook becomes the first man to win back-to-back medals in this event since Kosuke Kitajima in 2004/2008. He’s the first Australian man to ever do so in the 200 breaststroke.
• Caspar Corbeau wins the first swimming medal for the Netherlands at this games, with a bronze medal in a time of 2:07.90. This medal continues the Netherlands’ streak, as Arno Kamminga finished second in this event in Tokyo.
• With Stubblety-Cook and Corbeau on the podium, Australia and the Netherlands add another Olympics in a row of being on the podium together, with Stubblety-Cook and Kamminga finishing 1-2 in Tokyo.

MEN’S 100 FREESTYLE

• Pan Zhanle becomes the first swimmer of the meet to break a world record, and he does so in a time of 46.40, shaving a whole 0.40 seconds off of his best time. This win comes with the widest margin of victory since Johnny Weissmuller’s victory over István Bárány in 1928, 96 years ago. At this point in the sport’s history, times were still recorded to the tenth– the hundredth place wouldn’t be added until 1972.
• Making this an even more impressive swim, Pan won the first ever medal in the men’s 100 freestyle for China. Romania’s David Popovici did the same for his country, taking home the bronze medal.
• Kyle Chalmers, in winning his third medal in this event, joined a select group of two other swimmers with three 100 freestyle medals (Duke Kahanamoku and Alexander Popov).