The men's 100 metre butterfly event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held from 2 to 3 August 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.

Caeleb Dressel of the US was the favourite going into the event, while defending Olympic silver medallist Kristóf Milák of Hungary, Canada's Josh Liendo and France's Maxime Grousset were also favourites based on recent results. In the semifinals, Dressel did not qualify for the final, while Nyls Korstanje set a new Dutch record to qualify fourth. Milák won the final with a time of 49.90, 0.09 seconds ahead of Liendo who won silver with a new Canadian national record of 49.99. Canada's Ilya Kharun finished third with 50.45.

Background The defending Olympic champion, Caeleb Dressel of the US; the defending Olympic silver medallist, Kristóf Milák of Hungary; and the defending Olympic bronze medallist, Noè Ponti of Switzerland, were returning. Dressel had missed a period of competition from 2022 to 2023, during which Milák won the event at the 2022 World Championships. However, he also took a break from swimming in 2023. Milák returned to training in 2024, but the Hungarian national head coach Csaba Sós reported that Milák had been training inconsistently in the lead up to the Olympics. In Dressel and Milák's absence, France's Maxime Grousset won the event at the 2023 World Championships.

Going into the event, Canada's Josh Liendo was ranked number one in the world, having swum a 50.06 at the Canadian Olympic Trials. Other contenders who had swum under 51 seconds in 2024 were: Hungarian Hubert Kós, Dutchman Nyls Korstanje, Katsuhiro Matsumoto of Japan, Jakub Majerski of Poland, Gal Cohen Groumi of Israel and Thomas Heilman of the US. Both SwimSwam and Swimming World projected that Dressel would win gold and Liendo would take silver. Swimming World also said it was "one of the most anticipated races of the Paris Games" due to several competitors having qualifying times in the low-to-mid 50 seconds.

Prior to the event, the world and Olympic records were 49.45, set by Dressel at the 2020 games.

The event was held at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events.

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 51.67 seconds. 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. Finally, the rest of the spaces were filled by athletes who had met the Olympic Consideration Time (OCT), which was 51.93 for this event. In total, 29 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, 10 athletes qualified through universality places and one athlete qualified through achieving the OCT.

+ Top 10 fastest qualification times Swimmer Country Time Competition Josh Liendo 50.06 2024 Canadian Olympic Trials Maxime Grousset 50.14 2023 World Aquatics Championships Noè Ponti 50.16 2024 Swiss Championships Caeleb Dressel 50.19 2024 United States Olympic Trials Matthew Temple 50.25 2023 Japan Open Kristóf Milák 50.75 2024 Mare Nostrum Monte Carlo Nyls Korstanje 50.78 2023 World Aquatics Championships Thomas Heilman 50.80 2024 United States Olympic Trials Hubert Kós 50.84 2024 Pro Swim Series San Antonio Katsuhiro Matsumoto 50.96 2023 Japanese Championships

Heats Five heats (preliminary rounds) took place on 2 August 2024, starting at 11:00. The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals. Milák swam the fastest, with a time of 50.19. Heilman did not qualify. Jesse Ssuubi Ssengonzi lowered his Ugandan record with a time of 53.76.

+ Results Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 1 3 5 Kristóf Milák 50.19 2 5 4 Josh Liendo 50.55 3 3 4 Noè Ponti 50.65 4 4 Maxime Grousset 50.65 5 5 2 Ilya Kharun 50.71 6 5 5 Caeleb Dressel 50.83 7 4 5 Matthew Temple 50.89 8 5 3 Nyls Korstanje 51.17 9 4 6 Jakub Majerski 51.18 10 3 6 Gal Cohen Groumi 51.30 11 5 1 Ben Armbruster 51.33 12 5 6 Katsuhiro Matsumoto 51.43 13 4 7 Simon Bucher 51.55 14 3 3 Hubert Kós 51.58 15 4 1 Naoki Mizunuma 51.62 5 7 Clément Secchi 51.62 17 3 8 Josif Miladinov 51.77 18 4 3 Thomas Heilman 51.82 19 2 6 Sun Jiajun 51.85 20 3 2 Diogo Ribeiro 51.90 21 4 2 Tomer Frankel 51.94 22 4 8 Kayky Mota 52.11 23 5 8 James Guy 52.23 24 2 5 Chad le Clos 52.24 25 2 4 Mario Mollà 52.27 26 3 7 Wang Changhao 52.37 27 3 1 Daniel Gracík 52.61 28 2 3 Kaii Winkler 52.64 29 2 7 Adilbek Mussin 52.74 30 1 2 Nikola Miljenić 53.32 31 1 3 Jesse Ssuubi Ssengonzi 53.76 NR 32 2 1 Cameron Gray 53.83 33 1 5 Joe Kurniawan 53.95 34 1 4 Miloš Milenković 54.26 35 2 2 Matthew Sates 54.53 36 1 6 Josh Kirlew 54.66 2 8 Jarod Hatch 54.66 38 1 7 Oscar Mitilla 58.77 39 1 1 Hasan Al-Zinkee 40 1 8 Yusuf Nasser

Semifinals Two semifinals took place on 2 August, starting at 21:05. The swimmers with the best eight times in the semifinals advanced to the final. Milák claimed the fastest seed with at time of 50.38, and Grousset finished with 50.41 to take the second seed. Dressel did not make it through to the final with a time of 51.57, and was filmed crying after the race. SwimSwam speculated that is poor performance could have been due to having already swum three races that day, including the final of the 50 metre freestyle 30 minutes earlier. Nyls Korstanje set a new Dutch record of 50.59 to qualify fourth, which beat his previous national record of 50.78. None of the countries that qualified had previously won a gold medal in the event.

+ Results Rank Heat Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 1 2 4 Kristóf Milák 50.38 2 1 5 Maxime Grousset 50.41 3 1 4 Josh Liendo 50.42 4 1 6 Nyls Korstanje 50.59 , NR 5 2 5 Noè Ponti 50.60 6 2 3 Ilya Kharun 50.68 7 2 6 Matthew Temple 50.95 8 2 8 Naoki Mizunuma 51.08 9 2 7 Ben Armbruster 51.17 10 2 1 Simon Bucher 51.35 11 2 2 Jakub Majerski 51.37 12 1 2 Gal Cohen Groumi 51.48 13 1 3 Caeleb Dressel 51.57 14 1 8 Clément Secchi 51.58 15 1 7 Katsuhiro Matsumoto 51.69 16 1 1 Hubert Kós 52.22

Final The final took place at 20:30 on 3 August. Milák won with a time of 49.90; he was fifth at the halfway turn but finished with the fastest closing 50 metres split to win gold. Canada's Ilya Kharun had the second fastest closing 50 metres split, which elevated him from seventh at halfway to third at the finish, winning him the bronze. Grousset was third at the 50 metre mark, but performed a slow turn compared to the rest of the field which SwimSwam later opined may have cost him third place. Liendo was second at the 50 metre mark, but he performed a fast open turn and underwater to emerge in the lead. He didn't finish as close to the optimum period in the butterfly stroke as Milák did, which SwimSwam said might have cost him the gold medal. He won silver with a new Canadian national record of 49.99. Kharun was the only swimmer to increase his distance per stroke (DPS) throughout the race, while Milák had the highest average DPS.

Liendo's silver made him the fifth fastest performer of all time in the event and won him his first Olympic medal. Liendo and Kharun gave Canada its first double podium of the games since the 1976 Summer Olympics.

+ Results Rank Lane Swimmer Nation Time Notes 4 Kristóf Milák 49.90 3 Josh Liendo 49.99 NR 7 Ilya Kharun 50.45 4 2 Noè Ponti 50.55 5 5 Maxime Grousset 50.75 6 6 Nyls Korstanje 50.83 7 1 Matthew Temple 51.10 8 8 Naoki Mizunuma 51.11

+ Statistics Name 15 metre split (s) 50 metre split (s) 50–65 metre split (s) Time (s) Stroke rate (strokes/min) Kristof Milak 5.25 23.40 7.42 49.90 52.7 Josh Liendo 5.22 23.24 7.41 49.99 56.8 Ilya Kharun 5.48 23.73 7.40 50.45 58.7 Noe Ponti 5.36 23.70 7.21 50.55 56.7 Maxime Grousset 5.42 23.26 7.86 50.75 54.9 Nyls Korstanje 5.36 23.23 7.58 50.83 58.6 Matthew Temple 5.25 23.59 7.38 51.10 53.8 Naoki Mizunuma 5.70 24.03 7.62 51.11 58.0

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