2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES
- Pool Swimming: July 27 – August 4, 2024
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- La Défense Arena — Paris, France
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The race that we’ve been waiting since early 2023 finally happened: Summer McIntosh, Kate Douglass, Kaylee McKeown, and Alex Walsh raced against each other in a women’s 200 IM race. There was arguably greater anticipation for this race than there was in any other event leading up to the Olympics, largely because we’ve never seen all four of these swimmers go at it before in one race.
So now that the race has concluded, the question is — did it live up to the hype?
In terms of back-and-forth racing, it absolutely did. Douglass got out in front with her 26.73 butterfly split, but an uncharacteristically bad 34.32 backstroke leg (even by her standards) pushed her all the way back to sixth at the halfway point. This allowed for McIntosh, McKeown, and Walsh to pass her, with McIntosh leading at the 100. McIntosh’s lead shortened during the breaststroke leg, but a formidably 37.53 split kept her in the race. Meanwhile, Douglass posted one of the fastest breaststroke splits of all-time (35.75) to push into third place. With 50 meters left to swim, Walsh had the lead, but McIntosh and Douglass caught up to her. Douglass had the fastest closing split in the field, but she couldn’t pass McIntosh.
In the end, McIntosh was first, Douglass was second, and Walsh was third. McKeown could never really get into the mix, and fell to fourth by a considerable margin.
That being said, there were other aspects of the race that disappointed. McIntosh broke Katinka Hosszu‘s Olympic record with a time of 2:06.56 to win, but she was the only top contender who went a personal best (Walsh initially went a best time of 2:07.06, but was disqualified — more on that later). McKeown, the No. 1 ranked swimmer headed into this meet, was over a second off her best.
With that race, McIntosh solidified her place as Paris’s top female swimmer, being the only one to win three individual gold medals.
And then there was the DQ. Just moments after the race ended, it was announced that Walsh had been disqualified for performing an illegal back-to-breast turn. Though the DQ was justifiable, it still soured the outcome of the race — the 200 IM was Walsh’s only event of this meet, and she had a chance to have a back-to-back Olympic podium finish with her Virginia training partner Douglass. Without Walsh on the podium, McKeown was awarded the bronze.
However, that’s the nature of swimming. It has its highs, lows, and dramatic moments, shown through the joys of McIntosh’s victory and the agony of Walsh’s DQ, as well as the sheer competitiveness of this race. And for those reasons, the women’s 200 IM still lived up to its hype.
The race was slightly overhyped only because too many people were inventing reasons the past few months why McIntosh wasn’t the favorite. The 200/400 monopolization is well known. McIntosh was #1 ranked female swimmer by SwimSwam the past two years. She is moving closer to her prime, not away from it. No injury. No illness. No slump. She never loses except when Titmus in the race. Yet somehow I was reading here and elsewhere, “I would have thought so a few months ago, but not anymore…”
I had advantage as lifelong sports bettor. Big picture dictates. The worst thing any analyst can do is pretend that every bit of new data needs to be incorporated toward subjective buffoonery.
Kate had 3/4 fastest splits. If she did her best BK split she wins easily. If she keeps swimming, she will own the WR.
Too bad it’s not a 150 IM
It depends. Summer McIntosh will only continue to improve, being so young and so highly motivated. My guess is Summer will continue to dominate 200 IM for a while yet.
If summer did her best Free split it would be a drubbing.
I don,t like comments like this.They assume that if their swimmer goes faster the other swimmers will not respond but just sit where they are.Not likely.The race is in the pool not in the comment section
It’s all about getting your hand on the wall first.
Or if she did her best BK split, she wouldn’t have had the energy to swim as fast in her other strokes.
Should woulda coulda…nada
Something about a grandma having wheels…
Walsh finished third? Getting DQ’d is finishing last.
Definitely not the most anticipated race…. Summer is clearly the best.
It was super exciting to watch and such a rich field. Summer is amazing, as they say, a generational talent.♡
The top 3 battle was there, just McKeown must have been too fatigued from the rest of the meet to make a real run at a 4-way battle.
I think the answer has to be no because in order to meet pre-race expectations it needed McKeown to be a factor in this race and she wasn’t.
It was a really exciting, neck to neck race even with McKeown a relatively distant third.
The article says McKeown was “more than 2 seconds off her best”. 2:06.6 to 2:08.0 is 1.4 seconds.
She wasn’t even 2 seconds off the WR
Best times aren’t a necessity for a race to live up to the hype.
The OG 2004 race of the century, only Phelps set a best time. Neither Titmus nor Ledecky went a best time in 2021 Tokyo 400 free.
Titmus did go a best time in the Tokyo Olympic final