Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics – Women's 100 metre backstroke

Women's 100 metre backstroke 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	29 July 2024 (heats and semifinals) 30 July 2024 (final)
Competitors	36 from 29 nations
Winning time	57.33 OR
Medalists
Kaylee McKeown  Australia Regan Smith  United States Katharine Berkoff  United States

The women's 100 metre backstroke event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held from 29 to 30 July 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events. Since an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of two lengths of the pool.

The USA's Regan Smith and Australia's Kaylee McKeown were the favourites going into the event, with Canada's Kylie Masse and the USA's Katharine Berkoff also in contention. In the heats, Spain's Carmen Weiler lowered her country's national record to 59.57. In the final, Smith and Masse led at the halfway point, but McKeown ended up winning the gold with a new Olympic record of 57.33. Smith won silver and Berkoff won bronze.

Background

The USA's defending Olympic bronze medallist and 2022 World Champion Regan Smith broke the world record at the 2024 US Olympic Trials with a time of 57.13. Defending Olympic champion Kaylee McKeown from Australia held the previous world record, and won the event at the 2023 World Championships. She swam 57.41 at the Australian Olympic Trials. Canada's Kylie Masse was the defending Olympic silver medallist in the event, and she finished second at the 2023 Championships. Other contenders included the USA's Katharine Berkoff, who swam 57.83 at the US Trials, and Australia's Iona Anderson, who swam 58.43 at the Australian Trials. Both SwimSwam and Swimming World predicted Smith would win, McKeown would take second and Berkoff would take third.

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). For this event, the OQT was 59.99 seconds. 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. In total, 20 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, while 16 athletes qualified through universality places.

Heats

Five heats took place on 29 July 2024, starting at 11:13. The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals. Berkoff qualified with the fastest time of 57.99, Smith qualified in second and McKeown in third. Carmen Weiler broke Spain's national record by 0.19 seconds, setting it at 59.57 to qualify.

Results

Rank	Heat	Lane	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Notes
1	3	4	Katharine Berkoff	United States	57.99	Q
2	5	4	Regan Smith	United States	58.45	Q
3	4	4	Kaylee McKeown	Australia	58.48	Q
4	5	5	Kylie Masse	Canada	59.06	Q
5	3	5	Emma Terebo	France	59.10	Q
6	5	6	Béryl Gastaldello	France	59.31	Q
7	4	5	Iona Anderson	Australia	59.37	Q
8	4	2	Carmen Weiler	Spain	59.57	Q, NR
9	4	7	Roos Vanotterdijk	Belgium	59.68	Q
10	3	7	Kira Toussaint	Netherlands	59.84	Q
11	4	3	Wan Letian	China	59.87	Q
12	5	3	Ingrid Wilm	Canada	1:00.06	Q
13	5	2	Maaike de Waard	Netherlands	1:00.12	Q
14	4	6	Wang Xue'er	China	1:00.15	Q
15	4	1	Louise Hansson	Sweden	1:00.26	Q
16	3	3	Danielle Hill	Ireland	1:00.40	Q
17	5	7	Adela Piskorska	Poland	1:00.47
18	3	2	Kathleen Dawson	Great Britain	1:00.69
19	3	6	Medi Eira Harris	Great Britain	1:00.85
20	5	1	Anastasiya Shkurdai	Individual Neutral Athletes	1:00.94
21	3	1	Celia Pulido	Mexico	1:01.10
22	5	8	Nika Sharafutdinova	Ukraine	1:01.47
23	4	8	Emma Harvey	Bermuda	1:01.78
24	3	8	Gabriela Georgieva	Bulgaria	1:02.16
25	2	5	Aviv Barzelay	Israel	1:02.30
26	2	4	Xeniya Ignatova	Kazakhstan	1:02.51
27	2	6	Zuri Ferguson	Trinidad and Tobago	1:02.75
28	2	2	Lucero Mejía	Guatemala	1:03.42
29	2	3	Cindy Cheung	Hong Kong	1:03.45
30	1	4	Ganga Senavirathne	Sri Lanka	1:04.26
31	2	8	Amani Al-Obaidli	Bahrain	1:04.27
32	2	1	Celina Márquez	El Salvador	1:04.55
33	2	7	Elizabeth Jiménez	Dominican Republic	1:04.99
34	1	3	Denise Donelli	Mozambique	1:08.73
35	1	5	Aýnura Primowa	Turkmenistan	1:10.17
36	1	6	Maleek Al-Mukhtar	Libya	1:10.99

Semifinals

Two semifinals took place on 29 July, starting at 21:01. The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final. Smith won the first semifinal with a time of 57.97 seconds, while McKeown won the second in 57.99.

Results

Rank	Heat	Lane	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Notes
1	1	4	Regan Smith	United States	57.97	Q
2	2	5	Kaylee McKeown	Australia	57.99	Q
3	2	4	Katharine Berkoff	United States	58.27	Q
4	2	6	Iona Anderson	Australia	58.63	Q
5	1	5	Kylie Masse	Canada	58.82	Q
6	1	7	Ingrid Wilm	Canada	59.10	Q
7	1	3	Béryl Gastaldello	France	59.29	Q
8	2	3	Emma Terebo	France	59.50	Q
9	1	6	Carmen Weiler	Spain	59.72
10	2	2	Roos Vanotterdijk	Belgium	59.86
11	1	1	Wang Xue'er	China	59.89
12	2	7	Wan Letian	China	1:00.06
13	2	1	Maaike de Waard	Netherlands	1:00.22
14	1	2	Kira Toussaint	Netherlands	1:00.37
15	2	8	Louise Hansson	Sweden	1:00.47
16	1	8	Danielle Hill	Ireland	1:00.80

Final

External videos
Women's 100 metre backstroke final

The final took place at 21:00 on 30 July. Smith and Masse led at the 50 metre mark, both splitting 28.02. Berkoff split third with 28.05 and McKeown fourth with 28.08. Over the last 50 metres, McKeown elevated herself to first to win the gold medal with a time of 57.33 seconds. Smith won the silver with 57.66, Berkoff won bronze with 57.98 and Masse finished fourth.

Smith spent the longest underwater and had the fastest average underwater pace, while McKeown had the fastest pace during the non-underwater sections. McKeown did 70 strokes throughout the race, which was the least of the top 4 swimmers; Masse did 75, Smith did 76 and Berkoff did 77. McKeown's winning time of 57.33 broke her own Olympic Record from Tokyo, matched her former world record in the event and won her her fourth gold medal. She later went on to win the 200 metre backstroke as well, which made her the first swimmer to win both the 100 metre and 200 metre backstroke events at consecutive Olympics. Later at the Paris Games, Smith broke McKeown's Olympic record with a time of 57.28, which she swam in the opening leg of the women's 4 × 100 metre medley relay.

Results

Rank	Lane	Swimmer	Nation	Time	Notes
	5	Kaylee McKeown	Australia	57.33	OR, =OC
	4	Regan Smith	United States	57.66
	3	Katharine Berkoff	United States	57.98
4	2	Kylie Masse	Canada	58.29
5	6	Iona Anderson	Australia	58.98
6	7	Ingrid Wilm	Canada	59.25
7	8	Emma Terebo	France	59.40
8	1	Béryl Gastaldello	France	59.80

Statistics

Name	15 metre split (s)	50 metre split (s)	50–65 metre split (s)	Time (s)	Stroke rate (strokes/min)
Kaylee McKeown	6.67	28.08	7.52	57.33	48.2
Regan Smith	6.69	28.02	7.45	57.66	53.1
Katharine Berkoff	6.75	28.05	7.39	57.98	53.8
Kylie Masse	6.81	28.02	7.70	58.29	50.8
Iona Anderson	7.17	28.47	8.09	58.98	50.7
Ingrid Wilm	6.87	28.69	8.07	59.25	44.2
Emma Terebo	7.18	28.79	8.39	59.40	49.0
Béryl Gastaldello	6.86	28.80	8.06	59.80	49.2