Revisiting the Medal Drought: Post-Olympics Update

Before the Olympics, I put out this article on swimmers who had opportunities to earn historic medals for their nations, looking at countries that had their most recent medals in 2016 or earlier. Now that it’s all over and the dust has settled, which athletes followed through and found themselves on the podium?

I’ll be looking at the countries that I highlighted back in July, listing their top performances from the 2024 Paris Games.

AUSTRIA (last medaled in Beijing 2008)

• Felix Auboeck was seeded seventh in the 400 freestyle coming into this year’s games, but couldn’t quite reach his seed time, finishing 24th overall. He also swam the 200 and 800 freestyle, but scratched the 200 and placed 13th in the 800. Austria’s best performer (and only finalist) was Martin Espernberger in the 200 butterfly, who finished sixth. Espernberger is only 20, and showed great signs for the future, as he was initially seeded 14th in the event and dropped half a second from his time in the finals. The Tennessee swimmer was 1.34 seconds off of the podium.

BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA (never medaled)

• Lana Pudar entered the meet seeded sixth in the 200 butterfly and 10th in the 100 butterfly. In Paris, she just barely missed out on finals (0.07 seconds) in the shorter distance, and finished 12th in the 200 butterfly. Although she didn’t medal this year, she’s only 18 years old, and she has a bright future ahead of her, already having earned medals at World and European Championship meets alike.

CZECH REPUBLIC (never medaled)

• Barbora Seemanova, Miroslaw Knedla, and Kristyna Horska all earned semifinal swims of their own at the Paris Olympics, but only Seemanova managed to crack into the top 8 for a finals swim. She placed sixth in the 200 freestyle, less than a second off of the podium.

GREECE (last medaled in Rio 2016) (Medaled in Paris 2024)

• Apostolos Christou had a historic swim in the men’s 200 backstroke, earning a silver medal to notch his country into the pool swimming leaderboards once again, for the first time since 1896. Spyridon Gianniotis finished second in the marathon swimming event in 2016, but the most recent Greek “pool swimming” medalists were a collection of swimmers who competed in Athens in 1896, in events like the 100m freestyle (only open to Greek naval sailors). Christou’s podium finish is even more impressive when you consider that he came into the event seeded 18th.

IRELAND (last medaled in Atlanta 1996) (Medaled in Paris 2024)

• Possibly the one of the safest bets out of any country on this list, Ireland brought home a historic three medals, including a gold medal from Daniel Wiffen in the 800 freestyle. Wiffen was seeded second and third in the distance freestyle events, and he broke the Olympic record in the 800 free to win gold and drop a second in the process. I expected Ireland to win a medal this year, but did not bet on them winning three. Wiffen and Mona McSharry each earned a bronze medal, in the 1500 freestyle and the women’s 100 breaststroke. I mentioned in the last article that “a well-timed personal best could place [McSharry] on the podium” and sure enough, she swam a best time in the semifinals and was right on her new best in the final to earn a bronze.

ISRAEL (never medaled)

• Israel didn’t have any finalists this year, but they would have had a finalist in the 200 IM, as Australia’s Ella Ramsay withdrew due to illness. Anastasia Gorbenko, as the first reserve, had first priority at Ramsay’s spot, both both she and Ye Shiwen (second reserve) declined the lane, and the final was swam with seven swimmers instead of eight. Five swimmers qualified for a semifinal, with Stanford swimmer Ron Polonsky (200 IM, 100 breaststroke) and Gorbenko (200 back, 100 breast, 200 IM) each qualifying for multiple. Despite not having any true individual finalists, the 800 freestyle relay of Denis Loktev, Bar Soloveychik, Eitan Ben Shitrit, and Gal Cohen Groumi tied for eighth with Japan, earning a second swim. The Israeli relay, with the same time, finished ninth in the final.

LITHUANIA (last medaled in London 2012)

• One of the biggest shocks from the meet came from Olympic and World Championship gold medalist Ruta Meilutyte missing out on the final of the women’s 100 breaststroke, her signature event. Meilutyte underwent surgery on her foot months before the Olympics, and she placed 11th in the finals. Lithuania had two swimmers place fifth in their respective events, with Danas Rapsys and Kotryna Teterevkova. Rapsys was the closer of the two time-wise to earning a medal, 0.67 seconds off of the 200 freestyle podium. Teterevkova was a little further off in the 200 breaststroke, finishing 2.60 seconds behind bronze medalist Tes Schouten.

NEW ZEALAND (last medaled in Atlanta 1996)

• Lewis Clareburt, Erika Fairweather, and the women’s 800 freestyle relay all earned second swims in Paris, with Fairweather making the finals in the 200, 400, and 800 freestyles. She had her best finish in the 400 freestyle, placing fourth but unfortunately stacked up against the likes of Ariarne Titmus, Summer McIntosh, and Katie Ledecky. Fairweather was only 0.26 seconds off of Ledecky’s third-place swim in the middle distance event. She placed seventh in the 200 and eighth in the 800. Clareburt finished sixth in the 400 IM, and the women’s 4×200 freestyle relay of Fairweather, Eve Thomas, Caitlin Deans, and Laticia-Leigh Transom placed eighth.

POLAND (last medaled in Athens 2004)

• Krzysztof Chmielewski and Katarzyna Wasick were the sole finalists for Poland, finishing fourth and fifth in the men’s 200 butterfly and women’s 50 freestyle. K. Chmielewski and his twin brother Michal competed in the distance fly event, both making the semifinals. Michal was 0.02 seconds off of making the final, placing ninth with a 1:54.64. Krzysztof placed fourth in the final, 1.10 seconds behind Ilya Kharun. The Chmielewski twins both compete at the University of Southern California, and their youth should provide them with some longevity in the 200 butterfly for years to come. Katarzyna Wasick was seeded second coming into the 50 freestyle, but fell just short in a very tight final heat. She was 0.13 seconds behind bronze medalist Zhang Yufei, touching in a 24.33 to finish fifth.

PORTUGAL (never medaled)

• Diogo Ribeiro swam a 21.91 to earn a second swim in the 50 freestyle, but rounded out the semifinal heats with a 22.01 to place sixteenth. Ribeiro is a World Junior Record holder and World Champion in the 50 butterfly, but since his main event is not contested at the Olympics (as of right now), he swims the 50 freestyle and 100 butterfly, which are both top-tier. On top of being the world champion in the 50 fly, he’s also the reigning world champion in the 100 fly, but placed 20th in the 100 in Paris. He’s still a very young swimmer, and his times in both the 50 and 100 are enough to keep him coming back at many international meets. Later on down the line, we could see Portugal’s first medal from Ribeiro.

ROMANIA (last medaled in Athens 2004) (Medaled in Paris 2024)

• The third country to end their drought, Romania claimed a gold medal and a bronze medal at the hands of David Popovici, ending their 20-year lapse without an Olympic medal. Popovici finally secured an Olympic medal after finishing fourth in the Tokyo 200 freestyle, by only 0.02 seconds to Brazil’s Fernando Scheffer. The 19-year-old got his revenge in the 200, finding himself on the better side of 0.02 seconds, just ever so slightly out-touching Matt Richards. He also finished third in the 100 freestyle, sandwiched by a hundredth of a second behind Kyle Chalmers and ahead of Nandor Nemeth. Popovici, the former world record holder in the 100 freestyle, has definitively solidified himself as one of the most consistent 100/200 swimmers of this generation of swimmers at a very young age.

SOUTH KOREA (last medaled in London 2012) (Medaled in Paris 2024)

• Kim Woomin, a quiet force in the men’s 400 freestyle, finished third in the event behind Lukas Martens and Elijah Winnington. His medal is the first since Park Tae-Hwan placed second in the same event in London 2012. Kim was the world champion in this event at the 2024 competition in Doha, appearing on the podium with Winnington and Martens (but in the opposite order). Their men’s 4×200 freestyle relay was also expected to score well, but the team placed sixth in the finals, despite Kim splitting a 1:44.98 on their third leg.

SPAIN (last medaled in Rio 2016)

• Hugo Gonzalez snuck into both backstroke finals at this year’s Olympics, finishing eighth out of the semifinals in both. His times of 52.73 and 1:55.47 placed him sixth in both events, 0.34 seconds away from third place in the 100 and 0.62 seconds away from appearing on the podium in the 200.

CHINESE TAIPEI (never medaled)

• Eddie (Kuan-Hung) Wang came into the 200 butterfly seeded ninth, and placed eighth in the preliminary rounds to earn himself a semifinal swim. In the semifinals, Wang placed 11th, bettering his time from prelims but not by enough to come back for finals. He was 0.45 seconds off of Martin Espernberger‘s eighth place time coming out of semis. Amongst many of these teams that haven’t medaled in a long time, the 200 butterfly seems to be the place to be, with Poland, Austria, and Chinese Taipei all within grasping range of either a finals swim or the podium.

TURKEY (never medaled)

• Kuzey Tuncelli, the junior distance phenom, swam to a time of 14:41.22 to place fifth in the men’s 1500 freestyle. I took a bit of a chance on this one, as he was seeded 17th in the longest event, over 23 seconds behind the first seed, Bobby Finke. In the end, Tuncelli only finished 11 seconds behind Finke, swimming to another great swim and becoming one of Turkey’s first ever Olympic finalists in the pool.