100 m freestyle, men, 25 m pool

What to remember

At the first modern Olympics, swimmers raced in the sea or in rivers: the Mediterranean in 1896, the Seine in 1900. The short course 100 m freestyle belongs to a different world, that of 25-metre pools, where Kyle Chalmers clocked 44.84 s in Kazan on October 29, 2021, at a World Cup meet.

In 1988, the record stood at 48.20 s, set by Michael Gross; it then passed to Alexander Popov in 1994 and to Amaury Leveaux in 2008, at 44.94 s. From Gross's time to Chalmers's, the change is 7% over 33 years. The falling times are credited to better training, developments in the sport and swimwear, and also to goggles, which were not widely used until the 1970s.

Born in Port Lincoln, Chalmers was Olympic champion in the 100 m freestyle in Rio in 2016, in a world junior record time. He also won the 200 m freestyle at the 2018 Commonwealth Games and the 100 m at the 2018 Pan Pacific Championships, then took silver in the 100 m at the 2019 World Championships in Gwangju.