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PARIS: Molly O’Callaghan and David Popovich swung to stellar performances in their 100m heats on Tuesday after winning 200m freestyle golds, while French hero Leon Marchand dived twice into the Olympic pool in a bid for more glory.
American star Katie Ledecky also returned to the La Défense Stadium and successfully advanced in the 1500m freestyle preliminaries, striving to defend her title.
Australia’s O’Callaghan beat defending champion Ariana Titmus to win the 200m title on Monday, while Romanian teenager Gregory Popovic narrowly won in a tight men’s race.
The pair returned just 12 hours later, with Australia’s two-time world champion O’Callaghan fifth in the heats behind world record holder Sarah Sjöstrom (52.99 seconds) and Hong Kong’s Siobhan Hogg.
Popovich, also a former world champion, finished third behind top-ranked American Jack Alexie (47.57 seconds), with Chinese world record holder Pan Zhanle tied for 13th.
O’Callaghan had a great opportunity to win the 100-200 double as defending champion Emma McKeon failed to qualify for the Australian trials.
She hasn’t lost the 100 freestyle in a major final since 2021, even though Hoy comes to Paris as the top seed because her time of 52.02 last year was the fastest since McKeown’s 51.96 at the Tokyo Olympics.
Caeleb Dressel also didn’t defend his title in the men’s 100 meters after failing to advance at the U.S. trials, making for a tough prospect.
Cesar Cielo’s world record held for 13 years was finally broken by Popovich in 2022.
But less than two years later, Pan Xiaoling broke the record again with a time of 46.80 seconds.
However, Pan Xiaoling seemed to be out of form, failing to make it past the 200m preliminaries and finishing the 100m race by just 0.06 seconds.
– Good shape –
Dressel’s longtime rival Kyle Chalmers, who won gold in Rio and finished just behind the American in Tokyo for silver, is currently sixth and is bullish on his chances again.
“I feel like I’m in the best shape I can be for the Olympics, definitely better shape than I was in Tokyo,” the Australian said.
“Every fight I go into I back myself. I think I have to have confidence and believe that I can do it.”
Marchand won France’s first gold medal in 12 years on Sunday in the men’s 400m individual medley, again drawing loud cheers from the crowd.
His tight schedule meant he qualified in both the 200m butterfly and 200m breaststroke heats.
He was sixth in the butterfly with a time of 1:55.26, then finished in the breaststroke with a time of 2:09.55 behind South Korea’s Cho Sung-jae and defending champion Zach Stabletti-Cook of Australia.
“I used up all the energy I had in the stadium just trying to swim as fast as I could every single race,” Marchand said.
Looking ahead to the semi-final, he added: “It’s going to be very exciting for me tonight.”
He will face Hungarian Olympic champion and world record holder Kristof Milak in the butterfly hurdles, who won in 1:53.92
Milack broke Michael Phelps’ 10-year-old world record in 2019 and tried to break it again in 2022, but took a break from competition last year.
In his absence, Marchand won the 2023 world title, becoming the third-fastest swimmer in history behind Phelps and Milack.
A key casualty in the preliminaries was Tokyo Olympic silver medalist Tomoaki Honda of Japan.
On paper, Marchand also faces a tough breaststroke test from China’s Qin Haiyang, who won all three gold medals at the 2023 world championships and broke Stabti Cook’s world record.
But Qin Gang was reportedly one of 23 Chinese swimmers who failed doping tests before the Tokyo Olympics and performed poorly in the 100m final, finishing only seventh and ultimately only 15th.
Ledecky, a six-time world record holder, finished the 1500 meters in 15:47.43 to edge Italy’s Simona Quadarella, who was aiming for an 11th Olympic medal, by nearly four seconds.
Later on Tuesday, Britain beat the United States to qualify for the men’s 4x200m relay final.
— AFP
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