Swimming at the 2020 Summer Olympics

The swimming events took place at the Olympic Aquatics Centre in Tatsumi-no-Mori Seaside Park in Tokyo, which was specially built for the 2020 Olympics and opened early in 2020. The Tokyo 2020 Olympics were notable for a man who was not competing, as these would be the first Olympics since 1996 without Michael Phelps, the most dominant swimmer of all-time.

The program had changed slightly since 2016, as the 1,500 metre freestyle was added for women, and the men added the 800 metre freestyle. A mixed 4 x 100 metre medley relay, which had been contested at the World Championships since 2015, was also added.

Australia and the United States have often been the dominant nations in Olympic swimming and that continued at Tokyo. Australia especially shone on the women’s side, winning 8 gold medals, and 13 medals, although the American women won more medals with 18, but only won three events. The USA men won 12 medals and 8 events, and overall, the United States led Australia in gold medals, 11-9, and medals won, 30-20. Behind Australia and the US, Great Britain had its best ever swimming Olympics with 8 medals and 4 golds.

The most dominant swimmers of the Tokyo Olympics came from these same two countries. Australia’s Emma McKeon won seven medals, with four gold medals. McKeon’s seven medals at one Olympics matched the all-time record for women set in 1952 by Soviet gymnast Mariya Gorokhovskaya. For the men, USA sprinter Caeleb Dressel won five gold medals, the most ever by a male swimmer not named Michael Phelps or Mark Spitz, and equalling Matt Biondi’s haul from Seoul in 1988.

Behind McKeon and Dressel, four swimmers won four medals, led by Australia’s Kaylee McKeown, with three gold medals. Also winning four medals, along with two gold medals, were American Katie Ledecky, Australian Ariarne Titmus, and China’s Zhang Yufei, with Great Britain’s Duncan Scott also winning four medals, with a single gold.

Only two individual world records were set in Tokyo, as Caeleb Dressel won the 100 metre butterfly in 49.45 to better his own mark from the 2019 World Championships, and South Africa’s Tatjana Schoenmaker won the 200 metre breaststroke in 2:18.95, bettering the mark of 2:19.11 set by Denmark’s Rikke Møller Pedersen at the 2013 World Championships. There were also four world records set in relays at Tokyo.