Swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's 50 metre freestyle

Men's 50 metre freestyle at the Games of the XXXI Olympiad
Venue	Olympic Aquatics Stadium
Dates	11 August 2016 (heats & semifinals) 12 August 2016 (final)
Competitors	85 from 72 nations
Winning time	21.40
Medalists
Anthony Ervin  United States Florent Manaudou  France Nathan Adrian  United States

The men's 50 metre freestyle event at the 2016 Summer Olympics took place between 11–12 August at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.^[1]

Summary

Sixteen years after he tied for the gold with Gary Hall, Jr., U.S. swimmer Anthony Ervin, aged 35, reclaimed his title in the program's shortest race to become the oldest male champion in Olympic swimming history. He threw down a gold-medal time of 21.40 to touch out the defending titleholder Florent Manaudou of France by a hundredth of a second.^[2] Manaudou was quick off the blocks, but could not catch Ervin near the wall to finish with a silver in 21.41.^[3] Meanwhile, Ervin's teammate Nathan Adrian swam to another bronze-medal feat at the Games with a 21.49.^[4][5]

Separated the top three by almost two tenths of a second, Great Britain's Benjamin Proud finished off the podium with a fourth-place time in 21.68, while Ukraine's Andriy Govorov, who led a vast field of swimmers earlier in the heats, slipped shortly to fifth in 21.74. Brazil's hometown favorite Bruno Fratus, fourth-place finalist from London 2012, and South Africa's Brad Tandy shared the sixth spot in a matching 21.79, with Lithuanian swimmer Simonas Bilis (22.08) closing out the field.^[5]

Other notable swimmers featured Australia's Cameron McEvoy, Russia's Vladimir Morozov, Manaudou's brother-in-law and countryman Frédérick Bousquet, and Trinidad and Tobago's George Bovell, who scored a twenty-seventh place finish in his fifth Olympic appearance.^[6][7]

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	César Cielo (BRA)	20.91	São Paulo, Brazil	18 December 2009	[8][9]
Olympic record	César Cielo (BRA)	21.30	Beijing, China	16 August 2008	[10]

Qualification

Main article: Swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Qualification

The Olympic Qualifying Time for the event was 22.27 seconds. Up to two swimmers per National Olympic Committee (NOC) could automatically qualify by swimming that time at an approved qualification event. The Olympic Selection Time was 23.05 seconds. Up to one swimmer per NOC meeting that time was eligible for selection, allocated by world ranking until the maximum quota for all swimming events was reached. NOCs without a male swimmer qualified in any event could also use their universality place.^[11]

Competition format

The competition consisted of three rounds: heats, semifinals, and a final. The swimmers with the best 16 times in the heats advanced to the semifinals. The swimmers with the best 8 times in the semifinals advanced to the final. Swim-offs were used as necessary to break ties for advancement to the next round.^[1]

Results

Heats

The swimmers with the top 16 times, regardless of heat, advanced to the semifinals.

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nation	Time	Notes
1	11	3	Andriy Govorov	Ukraine	21.49	Q, NR
2	10	4	Nathan Adrian	United States	21.61	Q
3	10	5	Anthony Ervin	United States	21.63	Q
4	11	4	Florent Manaudou	France	21.72	Q
5	9	4	Cameron McEvoy	Australia	21.80	Q
6	9	5	Vladimir Morozov	Russia	21.81	Q
7	10	3	Benjamin Proud	Great Britain	21.83	Q
	10	7	Santo Condorelli	Canada		Q
9	9	2	Luca Dotto	Italy	21.87	Q
10	10	6	Kristian Gkolomeev	Greece	21.93	Q
	11	5	Bruno Fratus	Brazil		Q
12	9	6	Brad Tandy	South Africa	21.94	Q
13	11	6	Ítalo Duarte	Brazil	21.96	Q
14	9	7	Shinri Shioura	Japan	22.01	Q
	11	8	Simonas Bilis	Lithuania		Q, NR
16	10	8	Norbert Trandafir	Romania	22.10	Q
17	11	2	Krisztián Takács	Hungary	22.12
18	10	2	Katsumi Nakamura	Japan	22.13
19	9	3	Damian Wierling	Germany	22.18
20	8	2	Yu Hexin	China	22.20
21	7	8	Renzo Tjon-A-Joe	Suriname	22.23	NR
	8	4	Filip Wypych	Poland
23	7	2	Ali Khalafalla	Egypt	22.25	=NR
	11	7	Ari-Pekka Liukkonen	Finland
25	7	1	Oussama Sahnoune	Algeria	22.27
	9	1	Frédérick Bousquet	France
27	8	7	George Bovell	Trinidad and Tobago	22.30
28	8	3	Aleksei Brianskiy	Russia	22.33
29	7	7	Douglas Erasmus	South Africa	22.37
30	8	8	Ning Zetao	China	22.38
31	7	6	Federico Grabich	Argentina	22.44
32	6	4	Geoffrey Cheah	Hong Kong	22.46
33	8	5	Odysseus Meladinis	Greece	22.47
	10	1	Matthew Abood	Australia
35	7	3	Yuri Kisil	Canada	22.50
	9	8	Paweł Juraszek	Poland
37	11	1	Federico Bocchia	Italy	22.54
38	8	1	François Heersbrandt	Belgium	22.58
39	7	4	Jasper Aerents	Belgium	22.61
40	6	5	Mario Todorović	Croatia	22.65
41	1	3	Sidni Hoxha	Albania	22.80	NR
	8	6	Ziv Kalontarov	Israel
43	6	6	Shane Ryan	Ireland	22.88
44	6	3	Cristian Quintero	Venezuela	22.92
45	6	2	Jordan Augier	Saint Lucia	23.28
46	6	7	José Alberto Quintanilla	Bolivia	23.35
47	6	1	Vahan Mkhitaryan	Armenia	23.50
48	5	6	Abdoul Niane	Senegal	23.66
49	4	4	Hilal Hemed Hilal	Tanzania	23.70	NR[12]
50	6	8	Anthony Barbar	Lebanon	23.77
51	5	4	Meli Malani	Fiji	23.88
	5	5	Maksim Inić	Montenegro
53	5	3	Ahmad Attellesey	Libya	23.89
54	5	7	Mahfizur Rahman Sagor	Bangladesh	23.92
55	5	8	Abeiku Jackson	Ghana	24.30
56	1	7	Adam Viktora	Seychelles	24.32
57	5	1	Lum Zhaveli	Kosovo	24.53
58	4	5	Farhan Farhan	Bahrain	24.61
59	4	3	Samson Opuakpo	Nigeria	24.85
60	5	2	Batsaikhany Dulguun	Mongolia	24.90
61	2	1	Nikolas Sylvester	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	25.64	NR
62	4	8	Olim Qurbonov	Tajikistan	25.77
63	4	7	Giordan Harris	Marshall Islands	25.81
64	4	6	Joshua Tibatemwa	Uganda	25.98
65	3	5	Dionisio Augustine	Federated States of Micronesia	26.17
66	4	1	Billy-Scott Irakose	Burundi	26.36
67	2	7	Tindwende Sawadogo	Burkina Faso	26.38
68	4	2	Eloi Imaniraguha	Rwanda	26.43
69	3	8	Santisouk Inthavong	Laos	26.54	NR
70	2	4	Albachir Mouctar	Niger	26.56	NR
71	3	4	Ibrahim Nishwan	Maldives	26.72
72	3	6	Shawn Dingilius-Wallace	Palau	26.78
73	2	5	Osman Kamara	Sierra Leone	26.90
74	2	2	Bourhan Abro	Djibouti	27.13
75	1	5	Maël Ambonguilat	Gabon	27.21
76	3	1	Athoumane Solihi	Comoros	27.31
77	3	2	Jules Bessan	Benin	27.32
78	3	3	Amadou Camara	Guinea	27.35
79	3	7	Pap Jonga	The Gambia	27.48
80	2	6	Eméric Kpegba	Togo	27.67
81	2	3	Abdelaziz Mohamed Ahmed	Sudan	27.71
82	2	8	Dienov Andres Koka	Republic of the Congo	28.00
83	1	4	Brave Lifa	Malawi	28.54
84	1	2	Christian Nassif	Central African Republic	30.00
85	1	6	Frantz Dorsainvil	Haiti	30.86

Semifinals

The swimmers with the best 8 times, regardless of heat, advanced to the final.

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nation	Time	Notes
1	1	5	Florent Manaudou	France	21.32	Q
2	2	4	Andriy Govorov	Ukraine	21.46	Q, NR
	2	5	Anthony Ervin	United States		Q
4	1	4	Nathan Adrian	United States	21.47	Q
5	2	6	Benjamin Proud	Great Britain	21.54	Q, NR
6	2	7	Bruno Fratus	Brazil	21.71	Q
	2	8	Simonas Bilis	Lithuania		Q, NR
8	1	7	Brad Tandy	South Africa	21.80	Q
9	2	2	Luca Dotto	Italy	21.84
10	1	3	Vladimir Morozov	Russia	21.88
11	2	3	Cameron McEvoy	Australia	21.89
12	1	6	Santo Condorelli	Canada	21.97
13	1	2	Kristian Gkolomeev	Greece	21.98
14	1	8	Norbert Trandafir	Romania	21.99
15	2	1	Ítalo Duarte	Brazil	22.05
16	1	1	Shinri Shioura	Japan	22.18

Final

Rank	Lane	Name	Nation	Time	Notes
	3	Anthony Ervin	United States	21.40
	4	Florent Manaudou	France	21.41
	6	Nathan Adrian	United States	21.49
4	2	Benjamin Proud	Great Britain	21.68
5	5	Andriy Govorov	Ukraine	21.74
6	7	Bruno Fratus	Brazil	21.79
	8	Brad Tandy	South Africa
8	1	Simonas Bilis	Lithuania	22.08

References

1. "Men's 50m Freestyle". Rio 2016. Archived from the original on 26 August 2016. Retrieved 5 August 2016.
2. Auerbach, Nicole (12 August 2016). "Anthony Ervin becomes oldest male individual swimming champion". USA Today. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
3. Baldwin, Alan (12 August 2016). "Swimming: Ervin wins gold 16 years after his first". Reuters. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
4. "US swimmer Anthony Ervin wins Olympic gold in men's 50M freestyle; Nathan Adrian takes bronze". New York Post. 12 August 2016. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
5. "Anthony Ervin Once Again Claims Olympic 50 Free Gold, Sixteen Years After Original". Swimming World Magazine. 12 August 2016. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
6. "Andrii Govorov Qualifies First for 50 Freestyle Semifinals". Swimming World Magazine. 11 August 2016. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
7. "Cate And Bronte Campbell Miss The Rio Olympics Podium". The Huffington Post. 11 August 2016. Retrieved 4 September 2016.
8. "Brazil's Cesar Cielo breaks 50m freestyle world record". France24. 18 December 2009. Retrieved 10 July 2013.
9. "Brazil Long Course Championships: Cesar Cielo Sets World Record". Swimming World Magazine. 18 December 2009. Archived from the original on 23 February 2013. Retrieved 16 November 2011.
10. "'Big Cesar' races to first Brazilian swim gold". ESPN. 16 August 2008. Retrieved 13 May 2013.
11. "Rio 2016 – FINA Swimming Qualification System" (PDF). Rio 2016. FINA. Retrieved 23 January 2015.
12. "Tanzania: Swimming Body Lauds Hilal's Rio Feat". Tanzania Daily News. AllAfrica.com. 17 August 2016. Retrieved 17 December 2016.