The men’s 50 and 100 freestyle finals saw zero men swim in the final of both events, showing a clear divide between the two events. The men’s 50 freestyle also saw a much older final than the 100 free.
There is a clear divide between men’s 50 and 100 freestyle. The only man who made the podium in the 50 free to swim a 100 freestyle at all during 2024 was Florent Manaudou of France who won bronze. Neither Ben Proud (Great Britain) nor Cam McEvoy (Australia) have raced a 100 free at all this year.
The divide is shown even more as only zero men raced in both the 50 and 100 freestyle finals. Frenchman Maxime Grousset finished 5th in the final of the 100 free and qualified for the 50 free final as the #6 seed but ultimately scratched the event as he instead chose to focus on the semifinal of the men’s 100 butterfly that was just over 30 minutes later.
Numerous swimmers in the 50 free final made the semifinals of the 100 free but did not advance to the final. Josh Liendo of Canada was 4th in the 50 free final but missed the 100 free final as he was 11th in semifinals. The same can be said for Jordan Crooks of the Cayman Islands. Crooks was 8th in the final of the 50 but 13th in semifinals of the 100.
When looking at the data, age also shows a gap between the two events. The average age of the whole men’s 50 free final was 27.25 years old while the average of the 50 free final was just 22.5 years old.
Age Of 50 Free Final
Note: Bold marks podium swimmers
| 50 Free Final | Age |
| Florent Manaudou | 33 |
| Caeleb Dressel | 27 |
| Leonardo Deplano | 25 |
| Ben Proud | 29 |
| Cam McEvoy | 30 |
| Jordan Crooks | 22 |
| Kristian Gkolomeev | 31 |
| Josh Liendo | 21 |
| Average Age Of Final | 27.25 |
| Average Age Of Podium | 30.66666667 |
| Median Of Final | 28 |
Age of 100 Free Final
| 100 Free Final | Age |
| Chris Guiliano | 21 |
| David Popovici | 19 |
| Nandor Nemeth | 24 |
| Pan Zhanle | 19 |
| Kyle Chalmers | 26 |
| Maxime Grousset | 25 |
| Jack Alexy | 21 |
| Josha Salchow | 25 |
| Average Age Of Final | 22.5 |
| Average Age Of Podium | 21.33333333 |
| Median Of Final | 22.5 |
This doesn’t surprise me. I remember those drop dead sprinters that couldn’t hold it together past 75, but were heroes when it came time to anchor a 200 free relay.
Swimming is interesting this way. People tend to go down in distance as they get older. But running is exactly the opposite. Long distance runners often settle into the marathon as they approach the end of their careers. I don’t know which sport is right.
I think both make sense because of our reduced ability to recover from lactate training as we age. Short sprints and long distance events have a lower glycolytic training load, so athletes can still get quality work without trashing their bodies.
Would Dressel enjoy being a 50 only guy with what that entails training and schedule wise?
Cam could convert him over to the sprinting revolution.
I do wonder what kind of training he’s been doing the last year, given he was fairly high-yardage for his earlier career.
I don’t think he’d ever go full McEvoy type training, but I do wonder how he’d respond to it.
He could join MA.
Sort of why I don’t wanna see stroke 50s at the Olympics.
(Sure, maybe the field would be different than that stroke’s 100, but there will be a ton of overlap in those 50 fields – it selects for the same stuff.)
Isn’t that exactly what this article says isn’t happening? No crossover between the two finals.
I thought they meant 50 free/fly/back will be the same talent pool
Ah maybe I didn’t phrase my second sentence ideally, my point is that you’d see the same guys in all the 50s.
If it were short course it would 1000% be all the same guys, long course might make it a bit more likely it’s not just the same 8 guys, lol. (The overlap would be much higher than in any of the 100s, tho.)
And I mean, do we need to give 50 free specialist guys more events?
Does it? The only evidence in support of this argument is (or used to be) the similar fields. With the fields deepening, and the style, peak age and strategy of the 100-ers changing, maybe we are finally seeing changing tendencies.
Idk, pretty sure guys like Proud and McEvoy and Manaudou would final in multiple stroke 50s, same with your fringe guys like Cooper and Andrew.
Yes, that could very well be true. But I’m specifically talking about the difference between the 100 and the 50 free. If these two events truly separated (or separated enough), the 50 free could have its legit spot at the Olympics, not just this “eh, it’s short and unpredictable, so people will watch it” spot.
On the other hand, maybe it’s because the 50 free is at the Olympics that athletes feel more confident in fully specializing in the 50 free
And the skills that they develop there make it pretty easy for them to do extremely fast stroke 50s, too.
Like do you think McEvoy has put in a ton of fly work the last couple years? He was still able to swim a p good 50 in Doha.
(Like hell, if MA is able to do all the 50s well what’s stopping an actual good swimmer from doing it?!)
Steve, I agree with most of your last comment, but I don’t think it’s right to say Michael Andrew isn’t a good swimmer. I’m sure he could benefit from a new training stimulus, but remember that he has performed some impressive 100 Breast, 100 Fly, and 200 IM swims. I’m not a fanboy of his, but he deserves more credit than you’re giving him.
lol it was a cheap ploy to get more people to agree with me.
I’m a mild MA defender usually. (And am probably one of the few remaining folks that thinks he can still win some medals internationally in non-50s.) Dude has the talent, just needs to get into the right situation.
questionable methodology. bettr if you use the median instead of mean to remove outliers
100% correct ; the mean is more used because it’s really easy to compute (and to use in maths overall) but doesn’t necessarily mean that much on it’s own
Median for 50 free = 28
Median for 100 free = 22.5
Were both not posted originally because they are now?
I can’t remove my comment but the medians are right were they belong in Anya’s article now 🙂