Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics – Women's 200 metre individual medley

Women's 200 metre individual medley at the Games of the XXXIII Olympiad
Paris La Défense Arena after it was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events
Venue	Paris La Défense Arena
Dates	2 August 2024 (Heats and Semis) 3 August 2024 (Final)
Competitors	34 from 27 nations
Winning time	2:06.56 OR
Medalists
Summer McIntosh   Canada Kate Douglass   United States Kaylee McKeown   Australia
←  2020 2028  →

The women's 200 metre individual medley event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held on 2 and 3 August 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events. ^[1] Since an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, each competitor had to swim four lengths of the pool.

Background

The USA's defending Olympic bronze medallist Kate Douglass won the event at the 2023 and 2024 World Championships, and she had the fastest qualifying time of 02:06:79, set at the US Olympic Trials. ^{[2] [3]} Alex Walsh, also from the US, won the 2022 World Championships and took silver at the 2023 Championships. ^[2] Walsh had the fourth fastest qualifying time of 2:07.63 ^[3] . Australia's 2022 World Championships silver medallist Kaylee McKeown had the third fastest qualifying time of 2:06.99, ^{[4] [3]} and Canadian Summer McIntosh had the second fastest qualifying time of 2:06.89. ^[3]

SwimSwam predicted McKeown would win, Douglass would take second and McIntosh would take third, while Swimming World predicted McIntosh would win, Douglass would take second and McKeown would take third. ^{[2] [5]}

Prior to the start of the event, Douglass, McKeown and McIntosh had all won gold medals in previous events, and SwimSwam reported that the event "looked to be an even higher-stakes race than expected". ^[6]

Qualification

Further information: Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics – Qualification

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). ^[7] For this event, the OQT was 2:11.47. World Aquatics then filled the rest of the event places with 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. ^{[7] [3]} In total, 23 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, while 11 athletes qualified through universality places. ^[3]

Top 10 fastest qualification times ^[3]

Swimmer	Country	Time	Competition
Kate Douglass	United States	02:06:79	2024 United States Olympic Trials
Summer McIntosh	Canada	02:06:89	2023 Canadian Trials
Kaylee McKeown	Australia	02:06:99	2024 Australian Championships
Alex Walsh	United States	02:07:63	2024 Pro Swim Series Knoxville
Sydney Pickrem	Canada	02:07:68	2024 Canadian Olympic Trials
Yu Yiting	China	02:07:75	2022 Asian Games
Anastasia Gorbenko	Israel	02:08:55	2024 Mare Nostrum Barcelona
Marrit Steenbergen	Netherlands	02:08:86	2024 Eindhoven Qualification Meet
Abbie Wood	Great Britain	02:08:91	2024 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships
Yui Ohashi	Japan	02:09:17	2024 Japanese Olympic Trials

Heats

Three heats took place on 2 August 2024, starting at 11:17. ^{[a] [8]} The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals. ^[9]

Results ^[8]

Rank	Heat	Lane	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Notes
1	3	4	Summer McIntosh	Canada	2:09.90	Q
2	3	5	Yu Yiting	China	2:10.28	Q
3	5	5	Alex Walsh	United States	2:10.48	Q
4	4	5	Sydney Pickrem	Canada	2:10.63	Q
5	4	4	Kate Douglass	United States	2:10.70	Q
6	3	6	Ella Ramsay	Australia	2:10.75	Q
7	3	3	Abbie Wood	Great Britain	2:10.95	Q
8	5	2	Ye Shiwen	China	2:10.96	Q
9	5	4	Kaylee McKeown	Australia	2:11.26	Q
10	3	2	Charlotte Bonnet	France	2:11.47	Q
11	5	3	Anastasia Gorbenko	Israel	2:11.53	Q
12	3	1	Emma Carrasco	Spain	2:11.54	Q
13	4	2	Shiho Matsumoto	Japan	2:11.67	Q
14	5	6	Yui Ohashi	Japan	2:11.70	Q
15	5	1	Ellen Walshe	Ireland	2:11.81	Q
16	4	1	Rebecca Meder	South Africa	2:11.96	Q
17	5	7	Kim Seo-yeong	South Korea	2:12.42
18	4	6	Sara Franceschi	Italy	2:12.88
18	4	7	Freya Colbert	Great Britain	2:12.88
20	4	3	Marrit Steenbergen	Netherlands	2:13.21
21	2	5	Kristen Romano	Puerto Rico	2:13.32
22	4	8	Barbora Seemanová	Czech Republic	2:13.47
23	3	8	Tamara Potocká	Slovakia	2:14.20
24	2	4	Lena Kreundl	Austria	2:15.04
25	3	7	Dalma Sebestyén	Hungary	2:15.16
26	2	6	Ieva Maļuka	Latvia	2:15.79
27	2	1	Võ Thị Mỹ Tiên	Vietnam	2:17.18
28	5	8	Lea Polonsky	Israel	2:17.53
29	2	2	McKenna DeBever	Peru	2:17.61
30	2	7	Nicole Frank	Uruguay	2:18.00
31	1	4	Azzahra Permatahani	Indonesia	2:20.51
32	1	5	Valerie Tarazi	Palestine	2:20.56
33	1	3	Jayla Pina	Cape Verde	2:24.51
	2	3	Han An-chi	Chinese Taipei	DSQ

Semifinals

Two semifinals took place on 2 August, starting at 21:31. ^[10] The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final. ^[9]

Results ^[10]

Rank	Heat	Lane	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Notes
1	2	5	Alex Walsh	United States	2:07.45	Q
2	2	4	Summer McIntosh	Canada	2:08.30	Q
3	2	3	Kate Douglass	United States	2:08.59	Q
4	2	6	Abbie Wood	Great Britain	2:09.64	Q
5	1	5	Sydney Pickrem	Canada	2:09.65	Q
6	1	4	Yu Yiting	China	2:09.74	Q
7	2	2	Kaylee McKeown	Australia	2:09.97	Q
8	1	3	Ella Ramsay	Australia	2:10.16	Q
9	2	7	Anastasia Gorbenko	Israel	2:10.32
10	1	6	Ye Shiwen	China	2:10.45
11	1	8	Rebecca Meder	South Africa	2:10.67	NR
12	1	1	Yui Ohashi	Japan	2:10.94
13	2	8	Ellen Walshe	Ireland	2:11.35
14	2	1	Shiho Matsumoto	Japan	2:11.85
15	1	7	Emma Carrasco	Spain	2:12.25
16	1	2	Charlotte Bonnet	France	2:12.80

Final

External videos
Women's 200 metre individual medley final

The final took place at 21:08 on 3 August. ^[11]

Results ^[11]

Rank	Lane	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Notes
	5	Summer McIntosh	Canada	2:06.56	OR , WJ , NR
	3	Kate Douglass	United States	2:06.92
	1	Kaylee McKeown	Australia	2:08.08
4	7	Yu Yiting	China	2:08.49
5	6	Abbie Wood	Great Britain	2:09.51
6	2	Sydney Pickrem	Canada	2:09.74
–	8	Ella Ramsay	Australia	DNS
	4	Alex Walsh	United States	DSQ	Recorded time of 2:07.06 before DSQ

Statistics ^[12]

Name	50 metre split	100 metre split	150 metre split	Time	Stroke rate (strokes/min)
Summer McIntosh	00:26.80	00:58.60	01:36.13	2:06.56	47.0
Kate Douglass	00:26.73	01:01.05	01:36.80	2:06.92	41.5
Kaylee McKeown	00:27.59	00:59.27	01:37.04	2:08.08	48.1
Yu Yiting	00:27.31	01:00.05	01:37.42	2:08.49	44.7
Abbie Wood	00:27.43	01:00.21	01:38.08	2:09.51	45.7
Sydney Pickrem	00:27.89	01:00.36	01:37.55	2:09.74	44.7

Notes

1. All times are Central European Summer Time (UTC+2)

References

1. Burgaud, Florian (22 July 2024). "From concert hall and rugby stadium to Olympic swimming pool arena in a matter of weeks, the metamorphosis of the Paris La Défense Arena is complete". olympics.com. International Olympic Committee (IOC). Archived from the original on 4 August 2024. Retrieved 1 February 2025.
2. Li, Yanyan (3 July 2024). "2024 Olympics Preview: Will We Finally Get The Race We Anticipated In The Women's 200 IM?". SwimSwam. Retrieved 20 February 2025.
3. Entries list - Swimming, World Aquatics, archived from the original on 12 July 2024, retrieved 18 December 2024
4. Li, Yanyan (19 June 2022). "Budapest 2022, Oceania Day 2: So...Was McKeown's Decision Worth It?". SwimSwam. Retrieved 20 February 2025.
5. Writer, David Rieder-Senior (25 July 2024). "Olympic Swimming Predictions, Day 8: Can Katie Ledecky Accomplish Four-Peat in 800 Freestyle?". Swimming World. Retrieved 20 February 2025.
6. Li, Yanyan (1 August 2024). "Three Individual Olympic Champions Will Face Each Other In The Women's 200 IM". SwimSwam. Retrieved 20 February 2025.
7. "Paris 2024 – Swimming Info". World Aquatics. 5 April 2022. Archived from the original on 8 February 2023. Retrieved 12 November 2022.
8. "Results" (PDF). olympics.com. International Olympic Committee. Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 August 2024. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
9. "Olympic swimming rules: How can swimmers qualify for finals and win medals - format explained". olympics.com. International Olympic Committee (IOC). 24 July 2024. Archived from the original on 21 August 2024. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
10. "Results" (PDF). olympics.com. International Olympic Committee. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 August 2024. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
11. "Results" (PDF). olympics.com. International Olympic Committee. Archived from the original (PDF) on 23 September 2024. Retrieved 18 December 2024.
12. Bodard, Simon; Decron, Nathan; Dernoncourt, Eric; Hui, Pierre; Jambu, Clément; Loisel, Camille; Pla, Robin; Raineteau, Yannis. "Jeux Olympiques 2024: Analyses de course des Finales" (PDF). French Swimming Federation . Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 August 2024. Retrieved 17 December 2024.