As always, Team USA will be one of the teams to watch in all of the 37 different swimming events programmed at the 2024 Paris Olympics, which officially gets underway today. The United States’ Olympic medal count has no comparison - 580 medals in total, 257 gold medals and 24 world records which stand to this day.
New swimming world records set in 2024
The medal count is surely set to rise, and who knows if we will witness any new world records set - Gretchen Walshtook Sarah Sjöström’s 100m butterfly record and Regan Smith registered a new world best time for the 100m backstroke in June’s Olympic trials - the two world records set by American swimmers this year. Both will be looking to get among the medals in Paris and maybe record personal best times - Walsh will be competing in three events (100 butterfly; 50 freestyle; 4x100 freestyle relay) as will Smith (100 backstroke; 200 backstroke; 200 butterfly).
Ledecky with Johnson in sight
Eyes will be on those two and undoubtedly on seven-time gold medalist and current WR holder for both the 800m and 1500m freestyle, Katie Ledecky. She will be going for gold in the 200m freestyle, 400m freestyle, 800m freestyle and 1,500m freestyle in Paris - four opportunities to close in on, or possibly even overtake compatriot Jenny Thompson, who currently has the most Olympic medals in women’s swimming with 12 (eight gold, three silver, one bronze). Ledecky is just two away from equalling her.
In the men’s, the spotlight will be focused on seven-time Olympic gold medalist Caeleb Dressel, who sits fourth in the overall men’s medals ranking behind three greats: Matt Biondi (11) , Mark Spitz (11) and Michael Phelps (28).
The Games get fully underway for Team USA’s swimmers on Friday 26 July (US time) with the men’s and women’s 4x100m freestyle relay heats followed by the 4x400m freestyle relay heats heats and continue with the women’s 100m butterfly and men’s 100m breaststroke heats.
We will also see the first finals take place on Saturday 27 July: men’s 400m freestyle, women’s 400m freestyle, women’s 4x100m freestyle relay and men’s 4x100m freestyle relay.
Let’s take a look at the full swimming schedule for Paris 2024 - all times for viewers in the United States.
While the heats will take place in the early hours of the morning for those following the Games in the United States, viewers should be able to catch the semi-finals and finals which start at a more reasonable hour - between 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. ET / 12 noon and 1 p.m. PT.
This will be the second time that the mixed 4×100m medley relay, which features two swimmers from the men’s team and two from the women’s team, will take place at the Olympics.
The event was first introduced at the Tokyo Games and won by Team Great Britain (Kathleen Dawson, Adam Peaty, James Guy, Anna Hopkin and Freya Anderson) with China taking silver and Australia, bronze.