Paris Olympics, Day 1 Prelims: Lukas Martens Tops 400 Free Qualifying After Flirting With World-Record Pace

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Lukas Martens -- Photo Courtesy: Andrea Staccioli / Deepbluemedia / Insidefoto

Paris Olympics, Day 1 Prelims: Lukas Martens Tops 400 Free Qualifying After Flirting With World-Record Pace

Three minutes, forty seconds: that is the barrier pushed but never surpassed in the men’s 400 freestyle, even if swimmers have been reaching for that time for more than a decade. Ian Thorpe twice came up just short, finishing his career with a world record of 3:40.08. Paul Biedermann clipped that mark by one hundredth during the supersuit era of 2009, but textile-only swimwear returned shortly thereafter. China’s Sun Yang won Olympic gold in 2012 in 3:40.14 but never swam any faster.

Last year, Australia’s Sam Short and Tunisia’s Ahmed Hafnaoui joined the 3:40-club at the World Championships, with Short beating out Hafnaoui for the world title by two hundredths, 3:40.68 to 3:40.70. Earlier this year, Germany’s Lukas Martens made a run at the barrier before clocking 3:40.33. Entering the Olympic Games, the expectation has been that it would take a world record to win gold when these men faced off.

For a moment, it appeared that might come in prelims as Martens raced Australia’s Eljiah Winnington in the final heat of the event, with the duo under Biedermann’s pace by more than two seconds at one point and by one second heading into the final 100 meters. They would fall off the pace, likely by design, but they will be front-and-center under a record watch at night.

Martens finished at 3:44.13, good for the top overall time out of prelims. Winnington’s 3:44.87 was good for fourth-best into the evening round while Germany got a second swimmer back into the heat as Oliver Klemet placed third in the heat at 3:45.75, the eighth-best time overall.

World record: Paul Biedermann, Germany – 3:40.07 (2009)
Olympic record: Sun Yang, China – 3:40.14 (2012)
Tokyo Olympic champion: Ahmed Hafnaoui, Tunisia – 3:43.36

The swimmers who most recently won world titles in the event squared off in the fourth heat of qualifying, with Australia’s Short in lane four and Korea’s Kim Woo-Min in lane five. After Short won in Fukuoka, while Kim was victorious at this year’s meet in Doha, when many of the big names were missing as they prepared for the Olympics.

Kim led during the early portions of the heat but faded down the back stretch as Short went ahead and then Brazil’s Guilherme Costa, the World Champs bronze medalist two years ago, passed both. Costa finished in 3:44.23, six tenths ahead of Short’s 3:44.88, while an inspired final 150 meters from American Aaron Shackell, the surprise winner of the race at last month’s U.S. Olympic Trials who is racing at a senior-level international meet for the first time, helped him get ahead of Kim by seven hundredths, 3:45.45 to 3:45.52.

Costa placed second overall in prelims with Short fifth, Shackell sixth and Kim seventh. Prior to the final pair of circle-seeded heats, China’s Fei Liwei put on a show in the third heat of the event, building a lead of two bodylengths on the way to a time of 3:44.60, a best time by more than one second.

Kieran Smith, who posted a huge personal best to win bronze in this event three years ago in Tokyo, could not keep pace in his heat, and he ended up 11th in 3:46.76. Hafnaoui, the Tokyo gold medalist, did not come to Paris to defend his title after upheaval in training this year.

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