The women's 100 metre breaststroke event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held from 28 to 29 July 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, this race consisted of two lengths of the pool.
In the final, Smith won gold with the winning time of 1:05.28. Qianting finished second with 1:05.54 and Ireland's Mona McSharry won bronze with 1:05.59, 0.01 seconds ahead of both Pilato and King who tied for fourth with 1:05.60. McSharry's bronze made her Ireland's first swimming medallist since 1996 and second swimming medallist ever.
Both SwimSwam and Swimming World predicted Qianting would win gold. SwimSwam predicted Smith would win silver and King would take bronze, while Swimming World predicted it would be the other way around.[2][5]
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 1:06.79 seconds. 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][4] Finally, the rest of the spaces were filled by athletes who had met the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which was 1:07.12 for this event.[6] In total, 23 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, twelve athletes qualified through universality places and two athletes qualified through achieving the OCT.[4]
Five heats took place on 28 July 2024, starting at 11:27.[a][7] The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals.[8] Smith qualified with the fastest time of 1:05.00, while Qianting, King, Pilato and Meilutytė also all qualified.[9]Israel's Anastasia Gorbenko qualified with the seventh fastest time, but withdrew to focus on her other events at the Games. This opened up the spot for China's Yang Chang, who swam the 17th fastest time, to qualify.[10]
Two semifinals took place on 28 July, starting at 21:10.[11] The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final.[8] Qianting won the first semifinal with the fourth fastest qualifying time of 1:05.83, while Smith won the second semifinal with the fastest qualifying time of 1:05.00. King and Pilato also qualified, though Meilutytė did not. Ireland's Mona McSharry qualified with the second fastest time of 1:05.51, which broke her own Irish record in the event.[12]Neutral AthleteAlina Zmushka swam a time of 1:05.93 to qualify, which broke the Belarusian record.[b][13]
The final took place at 21:34 on 29 July.[14] Qianting swam the fastest opening 50 metre split of 29.94,[15] but Smith overtook her over the second half of the race to win with a time of 1:05.28.[16] Qianting finished second with 1:05.54 and McSharry finished third with 1:05.59, 0.01 seconds ahead of both Pilato and King who tied for fourth with 1:05.60.[15]
McSharry's bronze made her Ireland's first swimming medallist since 1996 and second swimming medallist ever.[17][18] It was also Ireland's first medal of the Games.[16] At 27 years old, Smith was the oldest medallist ever in this event.[19]
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