Pan heats up at La Defense Arena

There are few superlatives that can accurately describe Pan Zhanle’s world record-breaking swim in the Men’s 100m Freestyle on day five. The 19 year-old was sublime, leading start to finish to lower his own world record set at Doha 2024. His backend was simply incredible – 24.12 to close out an Olympic final in 46.40. It’s almost half a second faster than any other man in history. And to top it off, the two fastest men ever, Pan and Romania’s David Popovici, are still both teenagers. While many may think this swim was out of nowhere, Pan has been cooking in the background for the past two years, highlighted in this article from Doha when he broke the world record for the first time.

Marchand’s Magnificent Mercredi

Statistics would say Wednesday night was the best-ever single session of swimming by an individual athlete at an Olympic Games. The crowd in attendance would say it was the best-ever night of swimming – period. What is certain is that Frenchman Leon Marchand filled pages and pages of record-books with his epic swims in both the Men’s 200m Butterfly & Men’s 200m Breaststroke. He becomes the first male in 124 years to win two individual gold medals in the pool on a single day (note: that the only other time it was done was Australia’s Frederick Lane in 1900 and it was in a river not a pool). He becomes the first French swimmer to win two career individual gold medals, and the first French swimmer since 1900 to win a non-freestyle gold medal (note: the only other swimmer was Charles Devendeville who won the Underwater Swimming event in 1900). He is also the first male swimmer in Olympic history to win both a breaststroke gold medal, and a non-breaststroke event gold medal. The list could go on and on. We all have ‘Leon Fever’, and best of all, he’s not even finished his Paris 2024 campaign yet.

Thirty is the new Twenty

Fourteen World Championships gold medals. Four short course World Championships titles. And one Olympic gold. But still, Sweden’s golden girl Sarah Sjoestroem, had never stood on an international dais with a 100m Freestyle gold medal around her neck. That was until Wednesday night when the veteran turned back the clock to become the oldest individual Olympic champion ever in the pool in events longer than one lap. She touched out a stellar field from lane seven: O’Callaghan, Jack, Huske, Haughey, Yang, Walsh, and Steenbergen. It is clear now that there is one golden rule in swimming - never write off or underestimate Sarah Sjoestroem… ever.

Ledecky = GOAT

Such was the standard of racing on day five that Katie Ledecky’s Olympic record-breaking swim in the Women’s 1500m Freestyle played second fiddle to the rest of the program. But let’s not playdown how incredible this woman is. First female to win individual gold at four successive Olympics. A record seven individual gold medals in female swimming events. And she now owns the twenty fastest times ever in the Women’s 1500m Freestyle. However, the most impressive part is that there is no reason she couldn’t go around again in four years time at LA2028. Incredible. 

Bastille Boy Wiffen turns Paris green

“Lights, camera, action! Amazing! I know everyone loves to see my walkouts. Today I wrote my name in the history books as I walked out, and I definitely backed it up in the pool.” Clearly no one could describe Tuesday night’s Men’s 800m Freestyle final better than Daniel Wiffen himself. From the moment the Irish superstar delivered his wrestlemania-esque walkout, the Paris venue turned green, and once the race stated, it was clear that it was ‘Wiffen Time!’ The 23 year-old had been looking for omens all week, and they came in spades on Tuesday night. "Bastille Day is my birthday, it is 100 years since Ireland competed, and there was also a storm tonight at nine o’clock, and I said to my coach, ‘we are renaming that Storm Daniel’.” If there is one thing even better than what the Irishman does in the water, it’s his interviews afterwards. It’s Wiffen Time!

A third trials record-breaker falls short

With two Olympic Trials world record breakers failing to win gold over the first three days of competition, day four saw another fail to break through for Olympic glory. The United States’ Regan Smith laid down the challenge to Australia’s Kaylee McKeown in a lead-up to Paris with a world record breaking swim at the US Olympic Trials. However Smith could not emulate this result in the Women’s 100m Backstroke finishing second behind her Australian nemesis. This now means the three swimmers who broke world records at either the Australian or United States swimming trials last month did not win any of their respective events at Paris 2024. 

A memorable French Summer

After making her Olympic debut at the age of 14 in Tokyo, Summer McIntosh has returned to the Olympic pool as a dominant 17 year-old winning gold in both the Women’s 400m Individual Medley and Women’s 200m Butterfly. On night six McIntosh was electric in the 200m Butterfly final swimming the fastest time ever in a textile suit. McIntosh also becomes just the third swimmer male or female to win those two events at the same Olympics – the others: Leon Marchand and Michael Phelps.