The men's 800 metre freestyle event at the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25 m) was held on 14 December 2024 at the Duna Arena in Budapest, Hungary.
Records Prior to the competition, the existing world and championship records were as follows.
Background The event featured several top contenders, including Australia’s Elijah Winnington and Germany’s Florian Wellbrock. While Winnington had no recorded short-course 800 m performances, he entered the meet following lifetime bests in long course (7:42.95 at the 2024 World Championships and 7:42.86 at the Paris Olympics). Wellbrock, the short-course world record holder in the 1500 m freestyle, owned a personal best of 7:27.99 from the 2021 European Short Course Championships. Germany’s Sven Schwarz, a 2024 Olympic finalist, entered with a season best of 7:37.02 and a lifetime best of 7:33.85. Tunisia’s Ahmed Jaouadi posted a 7:33.84 in May 2024, ranking first in the world that season. Other contenders included Sweden’s Victor Johansson (7:33.11), Italy’s Luca De Tullio (7:34.08), Hungary’s Zalán Sárkány (7:34.41), and France’s Damien Joly (7:36.59).
SwimSwam predicted Jaouadi would win, Winnington would come second, and Sárkány would come third.
Results The slowest heats were started at 11:13, and the fastest heat at 18:54. Rank Heat Lane Name Nationality Time Notes 5 7 Zalán Sárkány 7:30.56 NR 3 2 Florian Wellbrock 7:31.90 5 5 Ahmed Jaouadi 7:31.93 AF 4 4 5 Sven Schwarz 7:33.24 5 5 6 Luca De Tullio 7:34.32 6 5 4 Victor Johansson 7:34.65 7 3 5 Elijah Winnington 7:35.34 8 5 1 Nathan Wiffen 7:35.92 9 5 3 Savelii Luzin Neutral Athletes B 7:36.19 10 3 1 Daniel Matheson 7:37.14 11 5 8 Dimitrios Markos 7:37.32 12 5 2 Kirill Martynychev Neutral Athletes B 7:39.26 13 3 8 Krzysztof Chmielewski 7:39.75 14 4 4 Damien Joly 7:40.77 15 3 4 Carlos Garach 7:41.70 16 4 1 Kuzey Tunçelli 7:42.39 17 4 2 Ondřej Gemov 7:42.50 18 4 9 Charlie Clark 7:43.87 19 4 6 Kazushi Imafuku 7:44.10 20 4 7 Rami Rahmouni 7:44.40 21 3 6 Zhao Heting 7:45.40 22 2 4 Sašo Boškan 7:45.58 23 3 7 Andrei Proca 7:46.86 24 4 0 Muhammed Yusuf Özden 7:47.94 25 3 9 Timothé Barbeau 7:48.20 26 4 3 Kim Jun-woo 7:49.71 27 4 8 José Paulo Lopes 7:51.23 28 3 3 Kris Mihaylov 7:53.06 29 2 5 Mark Iltšišin 7:55.30 30 2 7 Marin Mogić 7:55.55 NR 31 3 0 Muhd Dhuha Bin Zulfikry 7:56.81 32 2 0 Liggjas Joensen 8:00.75 33 2 1 Diego Dulieu 8:01.94 NR 34 2 6 Larn Hamblyn-Ough 8:06.19 35 2 9 Nikola Gjuretanovikj 8:06.79 NR 36 2 3 Wang Yi Shun 8:08.22 37 2 8 Chirill Chirsanov 8:10.89 38 1 4 Alberto Vega 8:11.18 NR 39 1 3 Vladimir Hernández 8:34.19 40 1 5 Christian Chang-Chipolina 8:59.87 1 6 Ali Jaafar 2 2 Antonio Djakovic
References