The women's 200 metre butterfly event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held from 31 July to 1 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.
In the final, Yufei took an early lead, but was overtaken by McIntosh and Smith in the last 75 metres. McIntosh won gold with a new Olympic and world junior record of 2:03.03, Smith claimed silver with a national record of 2:03.84 and Yufei won the bronze. The medal was McIntosh's second gold of the games, making her the first Canadian swimmer to win multiple Olympic golds.
Background
The defending Olympic champion in the event was Zhang Yufei from China, while 17 year old Summer McIntosh from Canada won the event at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships. Regan Smith of the USA was the silver medallist at the previous Olympics, and had since swum the fourth fastest time in history—0.01 seconds slower than Yufei's personal best and two tenths faster than McIntosh's. 20 year old Elizabeth Dekkers from Australia was the 2023 World Championships silver medallist and was also on a positive improvement trajectory.[2]SwimSwam and Swimming World both ranked McIntosh as the favourite to win.[2][3]
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).[4] For this event, the OQT was 2:08.43 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.[4][5] Finally, the rest of the spaces were filled by athletes who had met the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which was 2:09.07 for this event.[4] In total, 14 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, four athletes qualified through universality places and one athlete qualified through achieving the OCT.[5]
Three heats took place on 31 July 2024, starting at 11:46.[a][6] The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals.[7] Yufei qualified as top seed, swimming 2:06:55,[8] while Greece's Georgia Damasioti lowered her own national record from 2023 by 0.19 seconds, swimming 2:09:55.[9]
Two semifinals took place on 31 July, starting at 20:45.[10] The swimmers with the best 8 times in the semifinals advanced to the final.[11] McIntosh qualified with the fastest seed of 2:04.87, with Smith qualifying second, Yufei third and Dekkers fourth. Also qualifying for the final was the USA's Alex Shackell, Denmark's Helena Rosendahl Bach, Australia's Abbey Connor and Great Britain's Laura Stephens.[12] Bach also lowered her Nordic record in the event by 0.28 seconds, swimming 2:06.65.[13]
The final took place at 20:30 on 1 August 2024.[14] China's Zhang Yufei started fastest, turning first at 50 metres with a 27.08 second split, 0.3 faster than Canada's Summer McIntosh, who in turn split 0.22 faster than Regan Smith from the USA. At 65 m, Yufei had extended her lead to 0.50, but by 100 m McIntosh had closed to 0.16 seconds. At 115 metres (after the third underwater), McIntosh had overtaken Yufei. Yufei temporarily retook the lead during the middle of the penultimate length, but by the final turn McIntosh had a 0.73 advantage.[15][16] Over the final 50 metres, McIntosh extended her lead to finish in first with 2:03:03, while Smith overtook Yufei to claim silver with 2:08.84. Yufei finished third in 2:05.09.[15]
Over the race, McIntosh spent about 19 seconds underwater, while Smith was underwater for about 28 and Yufei for about 29. Smith generally breathed once every other stroke, McIntosh generally twice every three strokes and Yufei on almost every stroke. SwimSwam opined after the race: "the key to McIntosh’s victory and Olympic record was her management of the third and fourth laps: she was the only swimmer to touch and surpass the speeds maintained during the first two laps".[15]
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