The women's 200-metre freestyle event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held on 28 and 29 July 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.
Australia's defending Olympic champion and world record holder Ariarne Titmus and fellow Australian Mollie O'Callaghan were considered the favourites for the event. Other contenders included Hong Kong's Siobhán Haughey and China's Yang Junxuan. All four progressed through the heats (preliminary rounds) and semifinals to the final.
In the final, Haughey led the race for the first 150 metres, but on the final length she was overtaken by Titmus and O'Callaghan. O'Callaghan won with a new Olympic record of 1:53.27, Titmus finished second with 1:53.81 and Haughey finished third with 1:54.55.
SwimSwam predicted Titmus would win and O'Callaghan would come second, while Swimming World predicted it would be the other way around. Both predicted Haughey would come third.[1][5]
The event was held at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.[6]
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 1:57.26. 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.[7][3] Finally, the rest of the spaces were filled by athletes who had met the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which was 1:57.85 for this event.[7] In total, 16 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, 14 athletes qualified through universality places and one athlete qualified through achieving the OCT.[3]
Four heats (preliminary rounds) took place on 28 July 2024, starting at 12:00.[8][a] The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals.[9] O'Callaghan qualified with the fastest time of 1:55.79, while Titmus, Haughey and Yang also all qualified.[10]
Two semifinals took place on 28 July, starting at 21:50.[11] The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final.[9] The US' Claire Weinstein won the first semifinal with the third fastest qualifying time of 1:55.24, while Titmus won the second semifinal with the fastest qualifying time of 1:54.64. O'Callaghan, Haughey, Yang, Barbora Seemanová of the Czech Republic, Erika Fairweather of New Zealand and Canada's Mary-Sophie Harvey also qualified.[12]
The final took place at 21:53 on 29 July.[13] Haughey led the race for the first 150 metres, but on the final length she was overtaken by O'Callaghan and Titmus.[14][15] During the underwater of the final length,[16] O'Callaghan also overtook Titmus to win gold with a new Olympic record of 1:53.27.[17][18] Titmus won silver with 1:53.81 and Haughey won bronze with 1:54.55.[14]<! scope="col" | --SwimSwam did not release a detailed analysis of this race as they did some of the others in this Olympics, which means it is not possible to give a detailed race breakdown here without excessive primary research.-->
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