2024 Paris Olympics Day 6 Finals: Fun Facts

As more Olympic records continue to fall, the constant chirps of a “slow pool” are slowly starting to fade away. The Australian women’s 800 freestyle relay capped off the meet with a commanding win in Olympic record time, and both Summer McIntosh and Regan Smith dipped under the previous Olympic record in the women’s 200 butterfly. We saw nations win their first medals in the pool, with Greece winning quite the historic medal. Here are some fun facts about tonight’s session:

MEN’S 200 BACKSTROKE

• Apostolos Christou became Greece’s first-ever medalist in pool swimming as we know it today. Hosting the first Olympiad in Athens in 1896, Greece had multiple medalists in the “pool” (which wasn’t actually a pool, the swimmers competed in the Bay of Zea, off the coast of Athens) including a podium sweep in a special version of the 100 freestyle only open to Greek naval sailors. This was the last Olympics in which the country had won a medal in short-distance swimming. Their most recent marathon swimming medal comes from Spyridon Gianniotis, who won silver at the Rio games in 2016. With Christou winning a silver medal, he breaks a 128-year medal drought for Greek swimmers in the pool.
• Hubert Kos became Hungary’s second-ever gold medalist, with their last winner being Sandor Wladar in 1980. In 1980, the winning time was a 2:01.93. Kos won 44 years later with a 1:54.26.
• Both Christou and Roman Mityukov won their country’s first ever medals in this event. Switzerland’s best finish before Paris came from Mityukov in 2021, finishing 13th.

MEN’S 50 FREESTYLE

• Jordan Crooks becomes the Cayman Islands’ first ever finalist, with a time of 21.54 coming out of semifinals. Crooks will be seeded third coming into finals, behind Ben Proud and Cam McEvoy. 
• Proud and McEvoy tied for first place coming out of semifinal #2 today, something we’ve seen once before in the history of the event, with Cullen Jones and Cesar Cielo in 2012. We have seen a tie going into the finals of the men’s 50 freestyle every single Olympics since 2000. 
• France is sending both of its representatives to the final of this event, the first time that a host nation has sent both of its delegates to the 50 freestyle final since Gary Hall Jr. and David Fox qualified at the Atlanta games in 1996. 

WOMEN’S 200 BUTTERFLY

• Summer McIntosh won Canada’s first-ever medal in the 200 butterfly, swimming to a new Olympic record time of 2:03.03. This time shaves over a second off of her best time coming into the games, giving her the new Canadian and Americas record and making her the second fastest performer of all time. 
• McIntosh became one of the youngest winners of all time, with only Andrea Pollack of East Germany younger. McIntosh was born in August of 2006.
• Regan Smith and Zhang Yufei, winning silver and bronze respectively, joined a group of seven swimmers to win multiple Olympic medals in this event. 
• Smith also broke her own American record by 0.03 seconds, swimming a 2:03.84, going her fastest time in over a year. With this time, she becomes the fourth fastest performer of all time. 

WOMEN’S 200 BREASTSTROKE

• In winning the 200 breaststroke, Kate Douglass earned the United States’ fifth overall gold medal and 15th overall medal in the event. Swimming a 2:19.24, Douglass rebroke her own American record, previously a 2:19.30, set at the TYR Pro Swim Series in Knoxville. 
• Tatjana Smith won her second Olympic medal, joining a group of seven other women to win multiple medals in the 200 breaststroke. She becomes the most recent woman since Rebecca Soni in 2008/2012 to medal in both breaststrokes at two consecutive Olympic games. 
• Tes Schouten, with her bronze medal performance, has won the Netherlands’ first medal in this event in 76 years. With this medal, the Netherlands now has a gold, silver, and a bronze in the women’s 200 breaststroke. 
• The Netherlands claimed the bronze medal in both the men’s and women’s version of this event, with Caspar Corbeau winning bronze yesterday. They become the newest duo to claim a medal in both iterations of the event in the same Games, with Yuliya Efimova and Anton Chupkov being the most recent pair to do so, in 2016.

WOMEN’S 200 BACKSTROKE

• Kylie Masse is the oldest swimmer in this year’s final, born in January of 1996. She is the only swimmer born before 2000, with Kaylee McKeown being the next oldest in the heat, born in July of 2001. If Masse can medal in tomorrow’s final, she has the chance to be one of the oldest medalists in the event.
• Both Masse and McKeown, if they find themselves on tomorrow’s podium, can join a selective crowd of four swimmers who have won multiple medals in the women’s 200 backstroke. 
• Regan Smith, after completing the 200 butterfly/200 backstroke double today, has the chance to win her first medal in the event that she formerly held the world record in. 

MEN’S 200 IM

• Wang Shun, the gold medalist from Tokyo, has the chance to win his second gold medal and third overall medal in this year’s games. Wang is seeded fourth going into tomorrow’s final.
• Like Wang, returning silver medalist Duncan Scott also has the chance to defend his medal from Tokyo. Seeded third going into the finals, if Scott can pull off a win, he’ll be the third swimmer ever to improve his medal performance from a previous year’s Olympiad, behind Wang (Bronze 2016, Gold 2021) and Hungary’s Attila Czene (Bronze 1992, Gold 1996).
• Leon Marchand, the favorite going into tomorrow’s final, has a chance to win France’s first-ever medal in the men’s 200 IM.
• Jaouad Syoud is the first swimmer from Algeria to make a semifinal appearance at this Olympics, placing 15th. 

WOMEN’S 4×200 FREESTYLE RELAY

• Ariarne Titmus had the fastest split in the field, with a 1:52.95. Mollie O’Callaghan and Summer McIntosh had the next fastest splits, with a 1:53.52 and a 1:53.97. This places Titmus with the third best split of all time (she owns the fastest two), O’Callaghan with the fifth, and McIntosh with the eleventh.
• The Australian team of O’Callaghan, Lani Pallister, Brianna Throssell, and Titmus won this relay for their country, with this being the first time the Aussie women have won this event since 2008.
• At least two of the three countries that were on the podium today (United States, Australia, and China) have been on every single podium since the Olympic conception of this event in 1996. The United States has been on the podium every single Games since then.
• With this swim, Katie Ledecky earns her 13th Olympic medal, officially making her the most decorated American female athlete of all time.