The women's 200 metre breaststroke 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, Smith and Douglass swam close to each other the entire race, but Douglass finished first to win gold with a time of 2:19.24. Smith won silver with 2:19.60 and Schouten won silver with 2:21.05. Douglass' swim broke her own American record by 0.06, and Smith's win made her South Africa's most decorated Olympic swimmer. Smith retired from swimming after the race.
Background
South Africa's Tatjana Smith was the defending Olympic champion in the event.[2][a] She also won the event at the 2022 Commonwealth Games and at the 2023 World Championships,[2] and had the third fastest qualifying time of 2:20.80.[4] The fastest qualifying time of 02:19:30 belonged to the USA's Kate Douglass,[4] who also won silver at the 2023 and 2024 World Championships.[2] She also won the 100 metres freestyle event at the US Olympic Trials, but chose not to compete in order to focus on the 200 metres breaststroke.[5]Tes Schouten of the Netherlands won the event at the 2024 World Championships,[2] where she swam the second fastest qualifying time of 02:19:81.[4] The USA's Lilly King was the defending Olympic silver medallist and she held the fourth fastest qualifying time of 02:20:95.[2][4]
SwimSwam predicted Smith would win and Douglass would take second, while Swimming World predicted it would be the other way around. Both predicted Schouten would take third.[2][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 2:23.91. 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][4] Finally, the rest of the spaces were filled by athletes who had met the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which was 2:24.63 for this event.[7] In total, 16 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, three athletes qualified through universality places and four athletes qualified through achieving the OCT.[4]
Three heats took place on 31 July 2024, starting at 11:00.[b][8] The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals.[9] Smith qualified with the fastest time of 2:21.57, Schouten qualified second, Douglass qualified third and King qualified in eleventh. 35-year-old Jessica Vall of Spain qualified in ninth.[10] None of the competitors swam faster than their Olympic Qualifying Time.[11]
Two semifinals took place on 31 July, starting at 22:03.[12] The swimmers with the best 8 times in the semifinals advanced to the final.[9] Schouten won the first semifinal to qualify with the third fastest time of 2:22.74, while Douglass won the second semifinal to qualify with the fastest time of 2:19.74. Smith finished second in the second heat to qualify with the second fastest time of 2:19.94. The other final qualifiers were South Africa's Kaylene Corbett, China's Ye Shiwen, King, Lithuania's Kotryna Teterevkova and Japan's Satomi Suzuki.[13]
The final took place at 21:11 on 1 August 2024.[14] Douglass and Smith swam close to each other the entire race. Smith was 0.23 seconds ahead of Douglass at the 50 metre split, but at the 100 metre split Douglass was ahead by 0.12 and at the 150 metre split she had extended her lead to 0.19 seconds.[15] Douglass finished first with a new American Record of 2:19.24,[16] Smith finished second to win the silver with 2:19.60 and Schouten finished third with 2:21.05.[15]
Douglass' swim broke her own American record by 0.06,[5] and the win gave her her first individual Olympic medal. Smith's silver was her fourth Olympic medal,[15] making her South Africa's most decorated Olympic swimmer.[17] She retired from swimming after the race.[18][19]
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
