Swimming at the 2024 Paris Olympics is over, and the U.S. has won the medal table. Going into the final session, Team USA trailed Australia with six golds to seven, but a pair of world records by Bobby Finke and the women’s 4×100 medley relay solidified the U.S.’s position atop the standings for the ninth-straight Olympics.
While the U.S. has been historically dominant in pool swimming at the Olympics, this meet showed the rest of the world is catching up. Through the first four days, all six individual titles contested to that point had been won by European men. The American men’s sole gold came at the 11th hour, thanks to Finke defending his 1500 free title.
Still, it will be a long time before a country starts to close on the United States’ dominating 607 Olympic swimming medals, 265 of which are gold. For reference, Australia is in second with 230 total medals, 76 gold. (Even if you add in the eight medals earned by Australasia, a combined team with Australian and New Zealand athletes from 1908 and 1912, it hardly makes a difference.)
United States of Backstroke
It probably won’t come as a surprise that the stroke the United States has been most dominant in historically is a backstroke event. Prior to Paris, exactly 50% of all Olympic medals in the men’s 100 backstroke belonged to the U.S, with 15 of those being gold.
With the results in Paris, the balance was tipped to 49.4%, but it’s still an impressive result considering that the men’s 100 backstroke is one of the longest standing Olympic events. It has been contested since 1908 with only one absence in 1964.
The 200 back is another similarly dominant event for the U.S. with 43.1% of all medals. This is one event where it appears the world has caught up; an American man missed the podium in Paris for the first time since 1992.
As a final note in the 200 back, Apostolos Christou earned Greece’s first medal in the event with the silver… and Greece’s first medal in a swimming event since 1896.
The Great Equalizer
Across both the men’s and women’s events, the 200 breaststroke is the most likely candidate for another country to surpass the U.S.’s lead in the medal count: 20.8% of medals belong to the women, while only 18.5% of medals belong to the men.
The second place nation on the women’s side stands as the Soviet Union, who won’t be catching up any time soon (13.9%, 16.7% if you add in Russia), but the men look far more vulnerable. Japan is already winning the gold medal count six to five, and has 14.8% of medals of any color.
Kate Douglass won the 200 breast for the American women, while American Record holder Matt Fallon failed to advance to the final.
The 200 breast is also a long-standing Olympic event, making its 24th and 26th performance for women and men respectively in Paris.
Jury Still Out in New Events
The United States has won 50% of medals in the women’s 1500 freestyle, with a catch. Paris was only the second Olympic Games that the event was contested, and only six medals have ever been distributed. Two of them belong to Katie Ledecky.
It’s a similar story in the men’s 800 freestyle, where the U.S. is tied with Italy for most medals. More accurately, Bobby Finke and Gregorio Paltrinieri are tied for the most medals.
While the U.S. does currently have a formidable 1-2 punch between training partners Ledecky and Finke, it would be presumptuous to say the Americans are as dominant in these events as the backstroke discussed earlier.
The 4×100 mixed medley relay is another case with an asterisk. It’s the only event in which the United States does not hold a majority of medals. They missed the podium entirely due to a baffling line-up in Tokyo, but bounced back for gold and a world record in Paris.
The story is still being written for these three events, which are the youngest on the pool swimming schedule with only two Olympic appearances. In second is the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay, which first appeared in 1996.
In Conclusion
While the United States, particularly the men, looked far more vulnerable in Paris than they have in previous years, by the numbers there is no denying the American legacy in the pool.
But the U.S. won single-digit golds at these Olympics, the fewest in their nine year streak atop the table. 19 distinct countries won medals at the Games. All signs point to swimming growing more competitive around the world, which can only be good for the continued growth of the sport.
Per capita, the Aussies have probably been more dominant for a long time. But overall, I don’t see any one country surpassing us, at least for a long time. We’re just too big a country and when you factor in summer league, where everyone gets their start, I believe swimming is the largest participation sport in the country. So while football, basketball, soccer, and baseball are big sports, a lot of kids are exposed to some form of competitive swimming. Our talent pool is huge. What you are probably going to see more of is the athletes/small contingents with random event dominance. I wondered about Ireland having two medalists this games and looked up their clubs. The there are two… Read more »
My 2 cents: a combo of motivation, good coaching and competition makes champions. With the LA Olympics on the horizon, our athletes have motivation. We obviously have great coaching or Marchand, Kos and McIntosh would train elsewhere. And where else is swimming competition so intense on nearly a weekly basis? I believe the US will surpass our now lower expectations in ’28 because a new generation of swimmers will want desperately to emerge as the new PhelpsLedecky. Don’t give up yet!
Question for Aussies. Why do y’all whine about the US having a larger population? (Not in this comment section, but in general) We have like 340 million people while China has 1.4 billion. But do we give a sh**?? Nah we just shut up and beat them. They have a population over 4 times ours, they’ve been caught for cheating countless times, and we still absolutely wreck them on the medal table in every major international meet.
Maybe y’all should take notes. Quit yappin and start swimming faster
China is not a first world country.
More than 3/4 of their population struggle to put food on the table let alone do sport, likewise with India.
If you still unsure of what I mean, look at the sports attendances around the world & you can see the big population countries like India, China, Indonesia & even Brazil (who are football (soccer) crazy) don’t go to sports like the countries in the first world. See below figures on wikipeadia.
If not sure who are first world countries, they are only Nth America (both US & Canada), Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Japan & Sth Korea.
The US is by far the biggest Population wise for 1st world countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_attendance_figures_at_domestic_professional_sports_leagues
I am sure you do realise that a first world country, with the most resources has a significant advantage over a country with a population 14X smaller.
China is not a first world country with unlimited resources like USA
That logic doesn’t really compute. You are not exactly having one person vs a thousand Chinese. It’s still just one Chinese vs one Australian in a meet.
If you calculate the population of people who actually train and have facilities and the income to afford the best athletic training. Australia might have a larger population due to being richer per capita.
And may explain why other countries are improving and catching up because they are much wealthier overall compared to decades ago, albeit not yet as rich as the west.
so finding a relay team out of 330 million is no easier than finding a team from 26 million? Filling an entire team from 330 million. Even the resources thing. The amount of money to support athlete in the US compared to Australia?
Hmm, I think it comes down to size of middle class. The China Gov can’t sponsor too many people. They don’t have enough funds to give everyone a top chance. And why their Olympic Success would probably be dependant on their overall wealth.
If you look at their top swimmers in. China.They tend to go to swimming clubs from richer provinces. Those places can produce great swimmers as they have larger populations of well fed and quality trained people. When it comes down to it, richer countries tend to do well in Olympics especially for sports that are highly technical and need money for mastering the learning curve and afford quality training
Example is Pan zhanle is a great swimmer… Read more »
Whos whining ?
Americans were quaking when Moesha Johnson almost got gold in 10km open water
Remember the hype surrounding Chris Guiliano at the 2024 USA Swimming Olympic Team Trials? Boy, did he fizzle out after the M 4 x 100 FR-R on Day 1 at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Did he even do the prelims for the 800 free relay?
I thought USA Swimming hit rock bottom at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships only to fall further into the abyss at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
A comparison of the male contingent at the 2023 World Aquatics Championships, discounting the events (50 BK, 50 BR, 50 FL) not contested at the Summer Olympics, to the 2024 Summer Olympics:
USA Swimming
2023 World Aquatics Championships
Men’s Events
G – 2
S – 7
B – 5
Total – 14
USA Swimming
2024 Summer Olympics
Men’s Events
G – 2
S – 4
B – 3
Total – 9
It’s high time for a Taylor Twellman-esque rant:
What are we doing? What are we doing?
Goodbye Tim and Lindsay!
Tim Hinchey III and his cronies on the Board of Directors have to go. Out the door or thru the window, I don’t care how.
Genuine question – what do they have to do with athletes’ performance
Lol I’ve wondered the same thing and I’m pretty knowledgeable about USAS, maybe they think since Tim is partially to blame for all the financial misdoings of USAS in the past few years, that that has a direct cause to the bad performances. However I do think there need to be big changes in USAS, but maybe firing the CEO isn’t the best idea.
They don’t, but relay names guy won’t engage with actual conversation he’ll just type the same thing over and over
Well, he or she did attempt to provide some data.
“United States of Backstroke”
Backstroke golds over the last 2 Olympics:
Australia: 4
Russia: 2
Italy: 1
Hungary: 1
While the golds might not be coming like they used to, you can’t deny that the depth that the US has in backstroke, especially women’s, is very impressive.
The US men won Gold in the 100 back every single Olympics from 1996 to 2016. in 1992, we got silver and bronze. In 2021 the streak was finally broken, only because they cheated. If the sport were clean, the US would have won the 100 back for 24 straight years. A quarter century.
y’all have Kaylee McKeown, who has 1 of 2 WR’s and only barely. We had Aaron Peirsol, who’s WR from 15 years ago is still untouchable. Wanna compare Isaac Cooper to Ryan Murphy? Matthew Welsh to Lenny Krayzelburg? Maybe Hayden Stoeckel to Matt Grevers?
Ryan fcking Lochte, whose 2 back wasn’t even his best event, was still a better 200 backstroker than Australia has ever had
You call out Australians above for not “swimming faster” and then post the saddest, most pathetic cope I’ve ever seen. I’m embarrassed for you
Kaylee McKeown also has the 50 WR. Oh yeah and 4 more individual gold medals than Regan.
you seem to go a long way back to remember a US swimmer winning backstroke.
i think anyone that beats the US must have cheated.
total up the Australian men for us while you’re at it…..
Australian men have won the same number of backstroke golds as the entirety of the U.S. in the last two Olympics. Hope that helps!
Difference is there is nobody claiming Aus men can do backstroke. The subheading United States of Backstroke opens up to these comments about US men. As does salties delusional rant about the past.
We’re suffering from our own success – having to heavily/fully taper for Trials often narrowly kicks swimmers off the team that would likely be medal chances at the Games and replaces them with a newbie who had the swim of their life to make the team but then struggles at the Games – for example Lydia Jacoby & Dare Rose being replaced by Emma Weber and Thomas Heilman. Other countries don’t have the depth for things like this to happen.
Aussies also have to taper for June. Would have loved to see Meg Harris or Emma McKeon in the 100 free individually.
Every time Australians have been slower at the big meet than trials it’s all “chokers, can’t perform” etc. When Americans do it, it’s because you’re a SO GOOD that it makes you lose.
You can’t actually be serious, can you? If you win it’s because you’re the best but if you lose there’s ALWAYS an excuse.
You can understand why people don’t respect that right?
Since arriving at the University of Texas, Lydia Jacoby has regressed. The fault squarely lies with women’s head coach Carol Capitani the Clueless. In addition, Jillian Cox and Erin Gemmell regressed during their freshman season and Jillian Cox took a redshirt year. Inexcusable!
Do you have a google doc where you have all your rants saved about your various targets and you just cut and paste whenever you see a comment referencing one of them? Because they are literally the same verbiage every time.
At some point you’re going to have to realize that Jillian Cox hasn’t begun training with Carol yet. Not unless it was within the last week. She has been training with the club team at Texas. She’s not part of the Texas team until this fall. I’m still not sure how you think Jillian has regressed, but anything that has happened in the past year happened with her training with the club coach she has been swimming with for a few years now.
So Jacoby shouldn’t have gone in 21? Swim off her life to qualify… Then got better to grab the gold.
When the Australians had their trials in April, they didn’t swim as well in the Olympics. When they moved their trials to June, they started doing better. Up until this year, the US never really had issues with the June and August format.
Also, every time there are trials, someone comes from nowhere to make the team. Jacoby, Grimes, Sims, Curzan, Forde, White, Weyant, Bacon, Madden, Armstrong, Mitchell, Callan, Curry, and Finke all were relatively unknown internationally before they made that team.