Germany’s Lukas Maertens Wins First Gold Medal In Swimming At The Olympics

2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

MEN’S 400-METER FREESTYLE – FINAL

  • World Record:  3:40.07 — Paul Biedermann, GER (2009)
  • World Junior Record: 3:44.31 — Petar Mitsin, BUL (2023)
  • Olympic Record: 3:40.14 — Sun Yang, CHN (2012)
  • 2021 Winning Time: 3:43.36 – Ahmed Hafnaoui, TUN
  • 2021 Bronze Medal Winning Time: 3:43.94

Final: 

  1. GOLD: Lukas Märtens (GER), 3:41.78
  2. SILVER: Elijah Winnington (AUS), 3:42.28
  3. BRONZE: Kim Woo-Min (KOR), 3:42.50
  4. Sam Short (AUS), 3:42.64
  5. Guilherme Costa (BRA), 3:42.76
  6. Fei Liwei (CHN), 3:44.24
  7. Oliver Klemet (GER), 3:46.59
  8. Aaron Shackell (USA), 3:47.00

Lukas Maertens of Germany won the first gold medal in swimming at the 2024 Paris Olympics. Maertens swam to a 3:41.78 in the men’s 400 freestyle, finishing ahead of Elijah Winnington (Australia) and Kim Woo-Min (Korea).

Maertens missed the World Record by about a second and a half as the World Record stands at a 3:40.07 which Paul Biedermann set back in 2009. Maertens was even closer to the record in April, swimming a 3:40.33 at the German Swimming Championships. That swam also made him the #4 performer all-time.

Maertens’ gold also already allows Germany to surpass their gold medal count in the pool from the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. Germany won zero gold medals in Tokyo in the pool as their lone gold medalist in swimming events came from Florian Wellbrock in the 10km open water event. Florian also won bronze as he was 3rd in the 1500 free while his wife Sarah Wellbrock won bronze in the women’s 1500 free. Prior to Tokyo, Germany had not won any event in the pool at the Olympics since 2008.

The first medal of Paris was awarded earlier today as China won gold in shooting before winning another gold in the women’s 3m synchronized diving events.

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Tencor
3 months ago

World Champion losing the 400 free streak kept alive!

SHRKB8
3 months ago

The top 5 in this race have shown with their form all year that this was to be expected, but still needed to be executed. Good on them for being able to deliver under pressure, but most of all, congratulations to Lukas Maertens for this result 👏👏👏.

Weinstein-Smith-Ledecky-Sims
3 months ago

Lukas Martens went for it!

BingBopBam
3 months ago

Can’t wait until the pool conversions come out. Guaranteed this was a WR in a normal pool

Stingy
Reply to  BingBopBam
3 months ago

.5 per 100, Pan actually went 46.42

Andrew
3 months ago

No medals for BIEDERFRAUD lmaooo

About Anya Pelshaw

Anya Pelshaw

Anya has been with SwimSwam since June 2021 as both a writer and social media coordinator. She was in attendance at the 2022, 2023, and 2024 Women's NCAA Championships writing and doing social media for SwimSwam. She also attended 2023 US Summer Nationals as well as the 2024 European Championships …

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