Paris Olympics, Day 7 Finals Heat Sheet: Tight Men’s 50 Freestyle Final to Open Session

Cam McEvoy — Photo Courtesy: Andrea Masini / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

by David Rieder – Senior Writer

02 August 2024, 06:25am

Paris Olympics, Day 7 Finals Heat Sheet: Tight Men’s 50 Freestyle Final to Open Session

Night seven of swimming finals in Paris will be a shorter session with only seven races, but the first three will all be hotly-contested finals, with the men’s 50 freestyle, women’s 200 backstroke and men’s 200 backstroke. After that will be semifinals in the men’s 100 butterfly and women’s 200 IM.

Click here to view the full heat sheet.

All of the favorites successfully advanced to the 50 free final despite close calls from a pair of past championships, with Caeleb Dressel narrowly making it through prelims and Florent Manaudou struggling in the semifinals. Manaudou will swim in lane one in the final, with Dressel in two while Ben Proud and Cam McEvoy will have lanes four and five, respectively, after tying for the top mark in semis. Notably, Maxime Grousset withdrew from the final to focus on the 100 fly, allowing Josh Liendo a spot in the final.

In the women’s 200 back, Phoebe Bacon swam the top semifinal time ahead of defending champion Kaylee McKeown while Regan Smith will swim out of lane seven after she conserved energy in her semifinal heat following a silver-medal performance in the 200 fly. Kylie Masse, who won silver three years ago in Tokyo, will swim in lane two.

Finally, Leon Marchand will try to join Michael Phelps and Mark Spitz as the only men to win four individual gold medals in one Olympics. Marchand is the favorite in the 200 IM, and he will be in lane four. All eight swimmers in the field have previously won a medal in this event at the Olympics and/or World Championships, with Carson Foster and Duncan Scott seeded second and third, respectively, while defending champion Wang Shun is in lane six.

All of the favorites safely advanced into the semifinals of the two events contested here. Grousset, Liendo and Caeleb Dressel swim in the first semifinal heat of the 100 fly, with Kristof Milak and Noe Ponti in heat two, while all four of the favorites in the 200 IM, Summer McIntoshKaylee McKeownKate Douglass and Alex Walsh, swim in the second heat.