Swimming at the 2016 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre breaststroke


The men's 100 metre breaststroke event at the 2016 Summer Olympics took place between 6–7 August at the Olympic Aquatics Stadium.

Summary

Great Britain's Adam Peaty defeated the field with a new world record to become the country's third gold medalist in this event, since Duncan Goodhew topped the podium in 1980 and Adrian Moorhouse in 1988. He jumped to an immediate lead, and never looked back, charging ahead of the field with his trademark high stroke rate to lower his own world record at 57.13. Peaty's time also gave him the largest margin of victory in the event's Olympic history, sparing 1.56 seconds over South Africa's defending champion Cameron van der Burgh, who won a silver in 58.69. Meanwhile, U.S. swimmer Cody Miller overcame his rib condition to set a new American record of 58.87 for the bronze medal, edging out his teammate Kevin Cordes to fourth by 0.35 of a second.
Backed by a raucous home crowd, Brazil's João Gomes Júnior managed to pull off a fifth-place finish in 59.31, almost a tenth-second margin ahead of Japan's Yasuhiro Koseki and his countryman Felipe França Silva. Swimming on the outside lane, Kazakhstan's Dmitriy Balandin rounded out the final with an eighth-place time in 59.85. For the first time in Olympic history, all eight finalists finished the race in less than a minute.
Earlier in the prelims, Peaty established a new world-record time in 57.55 to lead all swimmers for the top seed, not only clipping 0.37 seconds off his own standard one year earlier, but also erasing van der Burgh's 2012 Olympic record by almost a second.
Notable swimmers missed the final roster, including Australia's Jake Packard, Peaty's teammate and 2015 world bronze medalist Ross Murdoch, Lithuania's Giedrius Titenis, and Hungary's Dániel Gyurta, who elected not to do the swimoff with New Zealand's Glenn Snyders on the morning prelims.
The medals for the competition were presented by Sheikh Ahmed Al-Fahad Al-Ahmed Al-Sabah, Kuwait, IOC member, and the gifts were presented by Mr. Andrey Kryukov, Bureau Member of the FINA.

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.
The following records were established during the competition:
DateEventNameNationalityTimeRecord
6 AugustHeat 6Adam Peaty57.55
7 AugustFinalAdam Peaty57.13

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.

Results

Heats

RankHeatLaneNameNationalityTimeNotes
164Adam Peaty57.55Q,
246Yasuhiro Koseki58.91Q
353Felipe França Silva59.01Q, SA
444Kevin Cordes59.13Q
545Cody Miller59.17Q
666Jake Packard59.26Q
754Cameron van der Burgh59.35Q
855João Gomes Júnior59.46Q
943Dmitriy Balandin59.47Q
963Ross Murdoch59.47Q
1161Li Xiang59.55Q
1265Giedrius Titenis59.90Q
1362Vsevolod Zanko59.91Q
1435Jorge Murillo59.93Q
1542Christian vom Lehn1:00.13Q
1647Glenn Snyders1:00.26
1648Dániel Gyurta1:00.26
1851Ippei Watanabe1:00.33
1968Panagiotis Samilidis1:00.35
2056Kirill Prigoda1:00.37
2157Damir Dugonjič1:00.41
2258Andrea Toniato1:00.45
2333Andrius Šidlauskas1:00.59
2425Yannick Käser1:00.71
2437Jason Block1:00.71
2652Čaba Silađi1:00.76
2738Laurent Carnol1:00.88
2767Yan Zibei1:00.88
2941Marcin Stolarski1:01.06
3024Carlos Claverie1:01.13
3034Joshua Palmer1:01.13
3226Erik Persson1:01.20
3323Nicholas Quinn1:01.29
3431Vladislav Mustafin1:01.66
3536Anton Sveinn McKee1:01.84
3622Azad Al-Barazi1:02.22
3715Radomyos Matjiur1:02.36
3821Matti Mattsson1:02.45
3914Martin Melconian1:02.67
4013Julian Fletcher1:02.73
4127Édgar Crespo1:02.78
4232Tomáš Klobučník1:02.93
4312Benjamin Schulte1:03.29
4428Dustin Tynes1:03.71
4516Amini Fonua1:06.40
4617Corey Ollivierre1:08.68

Semi-finals

Semifinal 1

Semifinal 2

Final

RankLaneNameNationalityTimeNotes
4Adam Peaty57.13
3Cameron van der Burgh58.69
5Cody Miller58.87AM
42Kevin Cordes59.22
51João Gomes Júnior59.31
66Yasuhiro Koseki59.37
77Felipe França Silva59.38
88Dmitriy Balandin59.85