SwimSwam Staff’s Medal Picks For The 2024 Paris Olympics

2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

• Pool Swimming: July 27 – August 4, 2024
  • Open Water Swimming: August 8 – 9, 2024
• La Défense Arena — Paris, France
• LCM (50 meters)
• Meet Central
• Full Schedule
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Entry Lists

Braden Keith, James Sutherland, Retta Race, Mark Wild, Yanyan Li, and Laura Rosado contributed to this report. 

It’s the moment that we’ve all been waiting for pool swimming starts tomorrow at the 2024 Paris Olympics. As we’ve done for other major meets, many SwimSwam writers debated who will medal in each individual event and listed them in the tables below.

Women

There are six individual events on the women’s side where there’s consensus among all eight writers about who will win gold. Those events are the 50 free (Sarah Sjostrom), 400 free (Ariarne Titmus), 800 free (Katie Ledecky), 1500 free (Ledecky), 200 back (Kaylee McKeown), 200 fly (Summer McIntosh), and 400 IM (McIntosh).

The 200 fly is the only event where the consensus pick is not the world record. But the 17-year-old McIntosh is a two-time world champion and the current world junior record holder (2:04.06).

While there’s general agreement that McKeown will defend her Olympic gold medal in the 200 backstroke, writers are split on whether she’ll pick up gold in the 100 back and 200 IM. The majority of writers picked Regan Smith to win her first individual Olympic gold in the 100 backstroke. James explained his reasoning for picking Smith: “Any nerves Smith used to have seem like they’re gone and she’s reached a new level,” referring to her 57.13 world record at the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Everyone’s hoping to see the 200 IM showdown that we’ve been waiting years for in Paris. The event’s depth is reflected in our picks; each of the favorites got at least one vote for gold. McKeown got the most with four votes, followed by Kate Douglass with two. McIntosh and Alex Walsh both got one.

James, who picked McIntosh reasoned that “McIntosh winning might not be a popular opinion, but she’s shown she can split similarly to McKeown on backstroke and has the best closing freestyle of anyone. Her breaststroke was much improved in the 400 IM at Canadian Trials, which should keep her close enough to pounce on free. Her heavy schedule is the only concern.”

Laura is also thinking about load management for her medal picks in the event. “Walsh will be the freshest. McIntosh has the heaviest program, which is the only reason I’m picking her to finish off the podium,” she said.

Other surprising picks include Retta and James picking Erika Fairweather to get bronze in the 400 freestyle. Both picked Ledecky as the swimmer of the big three (Titmus, McIntosh, and Ledecky) to miss the medals. Retta is also the lone vote for Mollie O’Callaghan to win 200 free gold and upset Titmus.

Finally, while everyone agrees an American woman will win the 100 butterfly, a majority of us picked Torri Huske to win ahead of Gretchen Walsh, the new world record holder.

Men

There’s much less consensus on the men’s events. There are only three events where every writer agrees; all agree that David Popovici will win the 200 free and that Leon Marchand will sweep the IMs. Bobby Finke earned seven votes in the 1500 free, but there’s one vote for Daniel Wiffen for gold as Retta’s picked the Irishman to sweep the distance races in Paris.

Unsurprisingly, it’s the men’s 100 freestyle where there’s the most disagreement about who will win gold. It’s the event with the most swimmers picked for gold across both the women’s and men’s events with five. Three writers picked Popovici for 100 gold and therefore to sweep the 100/200.

But Braden’s gone for Jack Alexy, Laura’s riding with Kyle Chalmers, Yanyan’s picked Maxime Grousset, while Sophie and Retta chose Pan Zhanle for gold. On her choice, Yanyan said “This is my hot take of the meet. In the 100 free, it’s about the race more than the time. Grousset has been so consistent these last few years, and this is his home Olympics. I think he has what it takes.”

Caeleb Dressel, Kristof Milak, and Adam Peaty are all defending Tokyo Olympic champions who have taken a break from the sport since the 2021 Olympics. At least one person has picked them to win gold in each of their events. Laura’s the only writer who picked Dressel to win gold in the 50 freestyle, but five writers picked him to triumph over the stacked 100-fly field.

The 100 butterfly closely follows the 100 freestyle with four different winners picks. In addition to Dressel, Grousset, Milak, and Josh Liendo got gold-medal votes. Even if the writer doesn’t have Dressel winning, they still have him making the podium in the event.

Along with the one vote for Milak in the 100 fly, three writers have picked him to defend his title in the 200 fly. He’s not the most popular pick in that event though, as Marchand earned four votes for gold. Five writers picked Peaty to complete the three-peat, while three went with the 2023 world champion, Qin Haiyang, for gold.