Olympic Swimming recap: Day 1

The 2024 Olympics in Paris are underway, and Day 1 of swimming brought multiple highly anticipated races. These Olympics come with another chapter in the rivalry between the United States and Australia, and the rivalry is at one of its most heated points in history. Let’s look at the medalists and recap the events from today.

Finals:

Men’s 400m Freestyle

1. Lukas Maertens- Germany

2. Elijah Winnington- Australia

3. Kim Woomin- South Korea

Maertens came into the finals as the heavy favorite and convincingly won the first gold medal of the meet. He led after the first 100, never relinquished the lead and it only grew late in the race.

Winnington started off slow, but had a great last 100 to sneak in and get the silver medal. Kim had a great start, and it was enough to hold off Australian Sam Short in the end to win the bronze medal.

Women’s 400m Freestyle

1. Ariarne Titmus- Australia 3:57.49

2. Summer McIntosh- Canada 3:58.37

3. Katie Ledecky- United States 4:00.86

This final featured the last two Olympic gold medalists (Ledecky in 2016 and Titmus in 2021) and the last three world record holders in the event (Titmus- current, McIntosh and Ledecky). Titmus led throughout the race and held off McIntosh for her second straight gold medal in the event.

McIntosh got off to a strong start but was unable to keep up with Titmus’s pace and took the silver medal. Ledecky now has won all three medals in the event (gold in 2016, silver in 2021 and bronze this year).

Women’s 4x100 Freestyle Relay

1. Australia 3:28.92 OR

2. United States 3:30.20

3. China 3:30.30

With this win, Australia has won this event at the last four Olympics. This time it was the team of last year’s 100m freestyle world champion Mollie O’Callaghan, Shayna Jack, reigning 100m freestyle gold medalist Emma McKeon and Meg Harris that also set a new Olympic record.

The United States were led off by Kate Douglass and Gretchen Walsh and then used a strong third leg from Torri Huske to propel them to the silver medal, and Simone Manuel just held off a strong charge at the end from Wu Qingfeng of China.

Men’s 4x100 Freestyle Relay

1. United States 3:09.28

2. Australia 3:10.35

3. Italy 3:10.70

The United States got a strong start from first-time Olympians Jack Alexy and Chris Guiliano. Their top leg then came on the third leg from Hunter Armstrong whose split of 46.75 gave them an almost two-second lead for 6-time gold medalist Caeleb Dressel who closed out the American victory.

Australia took the silver on a strong anchor leg from 2016 100m freestyle gold medalist Kyle Chalmers, and Italy took the bronze.

This makes the same three countries that medaled in Tokyo as well having medaled this year with Italy and Australia flipped as Italy took silver in 2021.

Semi-Finals

Women’s 100m Butterfly

Finalists

1. Gretchen Walsh- United States

2. Zhang Yufei- China

3. Torri Huske- United States

4. Angelina Köhler- Germany

5. Maggie Mac Neil- Canada

6. Emma McKeon- Australia

7. Mizuki Hirai- Japan

8. Louise Hansson- Sweden

Men’s 100m Breaststroke

Finalists

1. Adam Peaty- Great Britain

2. Qin Haiyang- China

3. Arno Kamminga- Netherlands

4. Nic Fink- United States

5. Caspar Corbeau- Netherlands

6. Nicolò Martinenghi- Italy

7. Lucas Matzerath- Germany

8. Melvin Imoudu- Germany

8. Ludovico Blu Art Viberti- Italy

Imoudu and Blu Art Viberti will have a swim-off to qualify for finals.

Jacob Rudy is a second-year majoring in broadcast journalism. To contact him, email jar7371@psu.edu.