# Swimming at the 2024 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metre individual medley

The men's 400 metre individual medley event at the 2024 Summer Olympics was held on 28 July 2024 at Paris La Défense Arena, which was converted to a swimming pool for the swimming events. Since an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, each competitor had to swim eight lengths of the pool—two lengths with each stroke.
The world record holder Léon Marchand of France was the heavy favourite going into the event. He qualified for the finals with the fastest seed, while the USA's defending Olympic champion Chase Kalisz and Australia's defending Olympic bronze medallist Brendon Smith both failed to qualify for the finals. Also in the heats, Germany's Cedric Büssing swam a time of 4:11.52 to break his country's national record.
In the finals, Marchand led from beginning to end, finishing with a new Olympic record of 4:02.95, winning him his first Olympic medal. Japanese swimmer Tomoyuki Matsushita won silver with 4:08.62 and the USA's Carson Foster won bronze with 4:08.66. Great Britain's Max Litchfield finished fourth with a new national record of 4:08.85.

## Background

France's Léon Marchand won the event at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships. At the 2023 Worlds, he broke Michael Phelps' world record in the event, setting it at 4:02.50. SwimSwam opined that he was "the clear and obvious front-runner", while Swimming World also said he was the favourite. Other contenders were the USA's Carson Foster, who finished second at the 2022 and 2023 World Championships; his training partner and defending Olympic champion Chase Kalisz; Japan's bronze medallist at the 2023 World Championships, Daiya Seto; and Japan's Tomoyuki Matsushita, the 2023 Junior World Champion.

## Qualification

Each National Olympic Committee (NOC) was permitted to enter a maximum of two qualified athletes in each individual event, but only if both of them had attained the Olympic Qualifying Time (OQT). For this event, the OQT was 4:12.50. World Aquatics then filled the rest of the event places with athletes qualifying through universality; NOCs were given one event entry for each gender, which could be used by any athlete regardless of qualification time, providing the spaces had not already been taken by athletes from that nation who had achieved the OQT. In total, 16 athletes qualified through achieving the OQT, while no athletes qualified through universality places.
Top 10 fastest qualification times :
| Swimmer | Country | Time | Competition |
| Léon Marchand | France | 04:02:50 | 2023 World Aquatics Championships |
| Carson Foster | United States | 04:06:56 | 2023 World Aquatics Championships |
| Daiya Seto | Japan | 04:07:92 | 2023 Japanese Championships |
| Chase Kalisz | United States | 04:08:22 | 2023 United States National Championships |
| Max Litchfield | Great Britain | 04:09:14 | 2024 Aquatics GB Swimming Championships |
| Alberto Razzetti | Italy | 04:09:29 | 2023 Italian Championships |
| Lewis Clareburt | New Zealand | 04:09:72 | 2024 World Aquatics Championships |
| Tomoyuki Matsushita | Japan | 04:10:04 | 2024 Japanese Olympic Trials |
| Brendon Smith | Australia | 04:10:18 | 2024 Australian Olympic Trials |
| Apostolos Papastamos | Greece | 04:10:83 | 2024 European Aquatics Championships |

## Heats

Two heats took place on 28 July 2024, starting at 11:15. The swimmers with the best eight times in the heats advanced to the final. Leon Marchand qualified with the fastest seed in the second heat, while Carson Foster won the first. The USA's defending Olympic champion Chase Kalisz and Australia's defending Olympic bronze medallist Brendon Smith both failed to qualify. Germany's Cedric Büssing qualified for the final in joint sixth place, breaking the nine-year-old national record with a time of 4:11.52 and becoming the first swimmer in the NCAA Division II to qualify for an Olympic final.
Results :
| Rank | Heat | Lane | Swimmer | Nation | Time | Notes |
| 1 | 2 | 4 | Léon Marchand | France | 4:08.30 | Q |
| 2 | 2 | 3 | Max Litchfield | Great Britain | 4:09.51 | Q |
| 3 | 2 | 5 | Daiya Seto | Japan | 4:10.92 | Q |
| 4 | 1 | 4 | Carson Foster | United States | 4:11.07 | Q |
| 5 | 1 | 6 | Tomoyuki Matsushita | Japan | 4:11.18 | Q |
| 6 | 1 | 3 | Alberto Razzetti | Italy | 4:11.52 | Q |
| 6 | 2 | 6 | Lewis Clareburt | New Zealand | 4:11.52 | Q |
| 6 | 2 | 8 | Cedric Büssing | Germany | 4:11.52 | Q, NR |
| 9 | 2 | 7 | Balázs Holló | Hungary | 4:12.20 | |
| 10 | 1 | 8 | Zhang Zhanshuo | China | 4:12.71 | |
| 11 | 1 | 5 | Chase Kalisz | United States | 4:13.36 | |
| 12 | 1 | 1 | William Petric | Australia | 4:13.58 | |
| 13 | 2 | 2 | Brendon Smith | Australia | 4:14.36 | |
| 14 | 1 | 7 | Gábor Zombori | Hungary | 4:14.88 | |
| 15 | 1 | 2 | Apostolos Papastamos | Greece | 4:15.32 | |
| 16 | 2 | 1 | Tristan Jankovics | Canada | 4:18.23 | |

## Final

The final took place at 20:30 on 28 July. Léon Marchand led the race from start to finish, splitting the first 50 metres 0.65 ahead of his world record pace. He was also 0.19 ahead of his world record at 350 metres but lost this lead in the final 50 metres to finish in 4:02.95. At the 100 and 200 metre marks, Daiya Seto was in second and was followed by Carson Foster in third, but over the breaststroke leg (200 – 300 m), Foster overtook Seto for second. Over the final 100 metres, Seto moved down to seventh while fellow Japanese swimmer Tomoyuki Matsushita moved up from fifth to second, pushing Foster to third and claiming the silver medal with a time of 4:08.62. SwimSwam later said that Matsushita's silver medal "might have been the most unexpected" swim at the Paris Olympics. Foster finished the race in third with 4:08.66, winning the bronze. Great Britain's Max Litchfield finished fourth for the third consecutive Olympics with a time of 4:08.85—a new national record.
During the breaststroke leg of the race, the crowd cheered "allez!" (French for "go") each time Marchand's head was above the water. SwimSwam later reported that "For that brief period during tonight’s session, it was a symbiotic relationship between Marchand and the crowd", and Marchand later said "The atmosphere was amazing, I don’t know how to explain it".
Marchand's winning time of 4:02.95 broke Michael Phelps' Olympic record from Beijing 2008 and won him his first Olympic medal. It was also the biggest margin of victory ever for this event at the Olympics. He went on to win three more gold medals at the same Games, in the 200 butterfly, 200 IM and 200 breaststroke.
Results :
| Rank | Lane | Swimmer | Nation | Time | Notes |
| | 4 | Léon Marchand | France | 4:02.95 | OR |
| | 2 | Tomoyuki Matsushita | Japan | 4:08.62 | |
| | 6 | Carson Foster | United States | 4:08.66 | |
| 4 | 5 | Max Litchfield | Great Britain | 4:08.85 | NR |
| 5 | 7 | Alberto Razzetti | Italy | 4:09.38 | |
| 6 | 1 | Lewis Clareburt | New Zealand | 4:10.44 | |
| 7 | 3 | Daiya Seto | Japan | 4:11.78 | |
| 8 | 8 | Cedric Büssing | Germany | 4:17.16 | |
Statistics :
| Name | 100 metre split | 200 metre split | 300 metre split | Time | Stroke rate (strokes/min) |
| Léon Marchand | 00:54.32 | 01:56.76 | 03:04.24 | 4:02.95 | 40.7 |
| Tomoyuki Matsushita | 00:56.52 | 02:01:13 | 03:11.56 | 4:08.62 | 42.5 |
| Carson Foster | 00:55.64 | 01:59.75 | 03:10.70 | 4:08.66 | 39.7 |
| Max Litchfield | 00:56.23 | 02:00.02 | 03:11.35 | 4:08.85 | 41.3 |
| Alberto Razzetti | 00:56.00 | 02:01.21 | 03:11.86 | 4:09.38 | 39.8 |
| Lewis Clareburt | 00:56.03 | 02:00.42 | 03:12.30 | 4:10.44 | 40.0 |
| Daiya Seto | 00:54.88 | 01:59.66 | 03:10.91 | 4:11.78 | 43.1 |
| Cedric Büssing | 00:57.92 | 02:03.24 | 03:16.29 | 4:17.16 | 38.2 |