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Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics – Men's 200-metre backstroke
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The men's 200 metre backstroke event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held from 31 July to 1 August 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to an Olympic-size swimming pool for the swimming events.
The US' Ryan Murphy and Hungary's Hubert Kós were the considered the most likely to win prior to the event. Other contenders were Great Britain's Luke Greenbank, Hugo González of Spain and Roman Mityukov of Switzerland. Greenbank was eliminated in the heats (preliminary rounds) after getting disqualified for swimming more than 15 metres underwater, while Murphy did not qualify for the final.
In the final, Greece's Apostolos Christou was ahead for the first 150 metres, but Kós overtook him on the final 50 metres to win gold with a time of 1:54.26. Christou won the silver medal with a national record of 1:54.82, and Mityukov won the bronze with another national record of 1:54.85. France's fourth-place winner Mewen Tomac also broke his country's national record with 1:55.38, while the seventh-place winner, Pieter Coetze, broke the African record with 1:55.60. Christou's second-place finish made him the first Greek Olympic medallist in pool swimming since the first Olympics in 1896.
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Background
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The US' Ryan Murphy won the event at the 2016 Olympics, won silver at the 2020 Games and won the event at the 2022 World Championships. At the 2023 World Championships, Hungary's Hubert Kós won gold, with Murphy winning silver. Murphy qualified for the Paris Olympics with a time of 1:54.33 at the US Olympic Trials—the fastest time of the season, where Keaton Jones also qualified with 1:54.61, which was the third fastest time of the season.[1]
Other competitors included Great Britain's Luke Greenbank, who finished third in the event at the previous Olympics; 2024 World Champion Hugo González of Spain, the 2023 Championships bronze medallist and 2024 Championships silver medallist; Roman Mityukov of Switzerland; and 2024 Championships bronze medallist Pieter Coetze of South Africa. Russia's defending Olympic champion Evgeny Rylov was not eligible to compete as World Aquatics required Russian athletes to have not shown any support for the Russian invasion of Ukraine to be able to compete as neutral athletes at the Games.[2][1] Rylov had participated in a pro-war rally so was not eligible.[3]
SwimSwam predicted Murphy would win and Kós would come second, while Swimming World predicted that it would be the opposite. Both publications predicted Hugo González would come third.[1][4]
The event was held at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.[5]
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Qualification
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Each National Olympic Committee (NOC) was permitted to enter a maximum of two qualified athletes in each individual event, but only if both of them had attained the Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT).[6] For this event, the OQT was 1:57.50. World Aquatics then considered athletes qualifying through universality; NOCs were given one event entry for each gender, which could be used by any athlete regardless of qualification time, providing the spaces had not already been taken by athletes from that nation who had achieved the OQT.[6][7] Finally, the rest of the spaces were filled by athletes who had met the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which was 01:58.09 for this event.[6] In total, 27 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, two athletes qualified through universality places and one athlete qualified through achieving the OCT.[7]
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Heats
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Three heats (preliminary rounds) took place on 31 July 2024, starting at 11:21.[a][8] The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals.[9] Mityukov qualified with the fastest time of 1:56.62. Kós, Murphy, González, Jones and Coetze were also among those that qualified.[10] Greenbank won the fourth heat but was disqualified for swimming more than 15 metres underwater at the start of the race.[11][12] China's Xu Jaiyu, the sixth seed for the event, did not show up to his heat.[13][10] Denilson Cyprianos of Zimbabwe beat his country's national record in the event, lowering it to 2:01.91.[14]
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Semifinals
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Two semifinals took place on 31 July, starting at 21:47.[15] The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final.[9] Kós won the first semifinal with 1:55.96, and Mityukov won the second with 1:56.05.[16] Murphy did not qualify.[17]
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Final
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The final took place at 20:37 on 31 July.[18] Greece's Apostolos Christou led the race at the 50 metre, 100 metre and 150 metre splits. At the 150 metre split he was over a second ahead of Kós in second place.[19][20] Over the final 50 metres, Kós overtook Christou to claim the gold medal, finishing with a time of 1:54.26. Christou won the silver with a national record of 1:54.82, and Mityukov won the bronze with a national record of 1:54.85.[19] France's Mewen Tomac finished fourth with 1:55.38, which was also a new national record.[21] Coetze finished seventh with 1:55.60, which broke the African record set by George Du Rand in 2009.[22] Rand's record was set with a supersuit, before they were banned in 2009 due to giving larger athletes a greater advantage.[23][24]
Kós' win made him the second Hungarian Olympic gold medallist.[25][26] Christou's second-place finish made him the first Greek Olympic medallist in pool swimming since the first Olympics in 1896.[27] Sophie Kaufman from SwimSwam believed that his performance was "one of the biggest surprises of the meet" due to him being the oldest swimmer in the final and having the slowest personal best.[28]
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Notes
- All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)
References
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