2024 Olympic Games Swimming

The 2024 Olympics swimming event is a must-see for fans of the Games as all the top nations contest for medals in Paris.

Athletes will take a plunge into the pool looking for top honours when the 2024 Paris Olympic Games begin this summer. It promises to be exciting as this sport never fails to entertain and it will be competitive from start to finish.

The Olympic Games swimming events are held in a 50-metre-long pool for both individual and relay races in breaststroke, butterfly, backstroke and freestyle. A fifth race, the mixed medley, involves all four strokes, with swimmers switching between them and the essential qualities across all strokes or distances are explosiveness, endurance, strength and technique.

Swimming is a popular sport around the world and several people are interested in participating, however, World Aquatics established standard Entry Times of two types: an “Olympic Qualification Time (OQT)” and an “Olympic Consideration Time (OCT),” for each event at the Games.

Additionally, standard entry times can only be recorded in approved competitions during the qualification period from 1st March 2023 to 23rd June 2024.

If the quota of 852 athletes is not reached after applying the categories during the qualification period, World Aquatics will then invite athletes who have equalled or bettered an OCT until the required quota is reached.

To qualify for the relay races, a maximum of 16 qualified teams are needed in each event so each country can enter only one team. The top three nations in each relay event at the World Aquatics Championships Fukuoka 2023 then qualify for the corresponding event at the Olympics.

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The remaining 13 teams for each relay event are chosen from the fastest times achieved in their preliminary heat and finals performances in the World Aquatics Championships 2023 and World Aquatics Championships Doha 2024.

Event tickets

The Olympics men’s and women’s swimming events begin on Saturday 27 July with the preliminary heats getting underway at 11 AM each day and the live medal races set to begin at 8:30 PM. One must apply for Paris Olympics 2024 Swimming tickets on the official ticketing application to retrieve your tickets or put them back on sale.

Swimming at the 2024 Paris Olympics will take place inside Paris La Defense Arena, the largest indoor events venue in Europe which opened in 2017 and is set for a maximum capacity of 17,000 for swimming.

The venue has been transformed to accommodate around 660,000 gallons of water in the form of an Olympic-size swimming pool thanks to its modular, multipurpose design.

Swimming fans will be keen to get in once the events begin and those who are unwilling to make long waits on official sources can get their tickets to the Olympics swimming event on a ticket resale site.

Team news

Tokyo 2020 400m freestyle swimming champion, Ahmed Hafnaoui of Tunisia, may not be fit to defend his title at Paris 2024. The 21-year-old was among the favourites to win the 400m gold medal while he was also a top contender in the 800m and 1500m events.

Team Canada, on the other hand, have invited 29 swimmers who have been officially nominated after the Olympic and Paralympic Swimming Trials recently. The contingent includes 13 returning Olympians and six Olympic medallists as well as 15 medallists from the World Aquatics Championships and 13 medallists from the Santiago 2023 Pan Am Games.

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Summer McIntosh is set to be involved in five individual events and multiple relays despite the 17-year-old winning four gold medals which is more than any Canadian swimmer ever at the World Aquatics Championships. Maggie Mac Neil will also have the chance to defend her women’s 100m butterfly gold medal after winning silver at the 2023 World Championships.

Kylie Masse is the benchmark going into this event as she qualified for the women’s 100m and 200m backstroke with some of the fastest times in the world this year. Having already won four Olympic medals, Masse is in prime form and she will have the company of Ingrid Wilm who is in for her Olympic debut as the 2024 World bronze medallist.

Several teams are yet to be confirmed but so far, Team Canada has announced their full list of Swimmers for Paris 2024:

Javier Acevedo, Sophie Angus, Alex Axon, Jeremy Bagshaw, Julie Brousseau, Brooklyn Douthwright, Emma Finlin, Mary-Sophie Harvey, Apollo Hess, Patrick Hussey, Tristan Jankovics, Ella Jansen, Ilya Kharun, Yuri Kisil, Finlay Knox, Josh Liendo, Kylie Masse, Summer McIntosh, Margaret Mac Neil, Emma O’Croinin, Penny Oleksiak, Sydney Pickrem, Regan Rathwell, Taylor Ruck, Rebecca Smith, Blake Tierney, Lorne Wigginton, Ingrid Wilm, Kelsey Wog.

Prediction

Records are waiting to be broken and history is there to be made, several athletes would be taking a shot at glory and Adam Peaty will fancy his chances at a medal in the 100m breaststroke. The Team GB man won a bronze medal at the World Championships and he will be targeting a place alongside Michael Phelps as the only men to successfully win one race at three consecutive Games.

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Peaty’s upcoming battle with China’s Qin Haiyang will be one of the events of the whole Olympics after the 24-year-old won all three breaststroke events at the World Championships. With an Olympic title on the line, veterans such as Arno Kamminga, Nicolo Martinenghi and Nic Fink will also try to stake a claim on the podium.

Elsewhere, the home crowd will be going crazy for Leon Marchand who is France’s best chance at gold in the pool and one of the faces of the Games for the host nation.

Marchand has already broken Michael Phelps’ 400m individual medley world record in 2023 and the excitement would be palpable whenever he steps into the pool.

Katie Ledecky is another athlete on the cusp of history as the most decorated female Olympic swimmer of all time having won 10 Olympic medals and 26 World Championship Medals with world records to boot. The United States freestyler has some considerable challengers but she is still expected to leave Paris with a few more medals.

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