Ben Proud Lastly Captures His First Olympic Medal

2024 PARIS SUMMER OLYMPIC GAMES

• Pool Swimming: July 27 – August 4, 2024
  • Open Water Swimming: August 8 – 9, 2024
• La Défense Enviornment — Paris, France
• LCM (50 meters)
• Meet Central
• Full Swimming Schedule
• SwimSwam Preview Index
• Decide ’em Contest
• How To Watch
• Stay Outcomes
• European Recap, Day 1: Lukas Märtens Doesn’t “Give A Shit” About 400 Free WR As He Wins Gold
• European Recap, Day 2: Leon Marchand Solutions The Hype With An Olympic File
• European Recap, Day 3: European Males Have Received Each Particular person Occasion Via Three Days
• European Recap, Day 4: Group GB’s 4×200 Free Relay The First To Defend Olympic Gold With Equivalent Lineup
• European Recap, Day 5: Out of the Highlight, Josha Salchow is Having The Meet Of His Life
• European Recap, Day 6: Apostolos Christou Wins Greece’s First Medal In The Pool Since 1896

“Am I ever going to get what I would like,” is a terrifying thought for anyone. For prime-level swimmers that thought might be tinged with the concern that years of labor, dedication, and sacrifice won’t outcome within the factor each swimmer desires about: an Olympic medal. And simply the thought turns into not “Am I ever” however “What if I don’t?” 

For Nice Britain’s Ben Proud, ‘years of labor’ contains over a decade on the senior worldwide stage. He made his first senior World Championship in 2013, qualifying for the British workforce by breaking the nationwide document within the 50 butterfly. 

Since then, he’s received lots. At 19, he received double gold on the 2014 Commonwealth Video games within the 50 freestyle and 50 butterfly. He earned bronze within the 50 butterfly on the European Championships that very same yr. These two occasions are Proud’s specialty, making him stick out in a British program that’s strongest within the center distances. 

However as Proud’s medal depend steadily elevated, there was one medal that eluded him. At his debut Video games in Rio, Proud completed an agonizing 4th place within the 50 freestyle, .19 seconds behind Nathan Adrian. He swam the 100 freestyle as effectively and completed twenty ninth however Proud is hyper-specialized for the 50s. And there are not any 50s of stroke on the Olympics which suggests he places every part on the 50 freestyle on the Video games. 

Proud bounced again after the Rio Video games. He dazzled on the 2018 European Championships, setting a then-textile world document of 21.11 within the 50 freestyle. However three years later in Tokyo, on swimming’s largest stage, Proud couldn’t replicate the swim. Once more, he completed off the rostrum within the Olympic remaining of the lads’s 50 freestyle, tying for fifth in 21.72. 

“I didn’t carry out practically in addition to I might have hoped,” Proud stated on the SwimSwam podcast within the fall of 2022. “It was actually fairly heartbreaking, fairly emotional, [it] threw me into fairly a nasty place.” 

Proud admitted that he was contemplating retiring from swimming and “took an enormous step again” from the game following the Video games. However ultimately, he stated, he discovered methods to discover love for the game once more. He moved coaching bases in April 2022, heading again to Gloria Sports activities Enviornment in Turkey. He started to mess around together with his coaching, incorporating issues he beloved that he used to do and in addition attempting new issues. The gymnasium turned essential to his coaching and extra essential than meterage. 

Whereas he has a gymnasium coach at Gloria, he’s largely alone for his pool work. He’s conscious that it’s an untraditional setup. “I’ve taken a really totally different route from plenty of individuals. I’ve nearly needed to craft my personal method…possibly that’s why it’s taken me a bit bit longer to seek out my comfy place inside the swimming world.” 

It’s been confirmed again and again — completely satisfied swimmers are quick swimmers. And although Proud stated that he went into the 2022 season targeted on getting expertise, not the occasions or the medals, the outcomes nonetheless got here. With World Championships, Commonwealth Video games, and European Championships all on the schedule, 2022 offered a wealth of alternative to British swimmers. Proud took full benefit and received the 50 freestyle in any respect three championships, turning into the primary to realize that Triple Crown. 

He received 50 freestyle bronze on the 2023 World Championships. Then he earned three golds on the European SC Championships in December, and rattled the SC 50 freestyle world document (20.18), setting the stage for an additional Olympic yr. 

On the British Trials in April, Proud exploded. He received the 50 freestyle in 21.25, the third-fastest swim of his profession and finest since 2018. Even with the added stress of the Olympic stage, Proud maintained his 2022 line of considering by not setting a medal because the purpose.

“I’m fortunate that I’m on this place that if I had been to retire with no medal, I’m actually okay,” he informed PlymouthLive. “The stress comes from eager to please the workforce round me and everybody who has proven a lot help all through my profession. It could be fairly a becoming strategy to say thanks to them. I simply wish to go there, be completely satisfied on the block, and swim what I can do.” 

Proud headed into the ultimate tied with Cameron McEvoy because the quickest qualifier after they each swam 21.38 within the semifinals. Within the chaos of the ultimate, the pair separated themselves at concerning the midway level, hanging on to all of the clear water they might discover. They hurtled to the wall collectively and on the contact, Proud claimed the silver medal in 21.30, the fifth quickest time of his profession per SwimRankings. 

In a cut up second, Proud ticked off the final lingering factor he had but to perform in his profession. The medal doesn’t all of a sudden validate the years of labor Proud put in to get to this second, that effort has worth irrespective of the outcome. However it does affirm that after disappointment in Tokyo, Proud nonetheless had one thing left to present—to the game, or possibly simply to himself. 

“Three years in the past is once I burst into tears. I couldn’t take the truth that I had form of failed in my race again in Tokyo. However that was in all probability probably the most becoming factor I went by means of as a result of if I hadn’t gone by means of that, I wouldn’t have skilled these previous three years, which has had the very best of highs and lowest of lows,” he stated after the Olympic remaining. 

Proud’s at all times been a cerebral swimmer. His psychological sport is one thing that he focuses on and on the SwimSwam podcast, he likens it to windsurfing. The parachute is the ambition, he explains, and he makes use of his ambition to information and pull himself alongside his profession. Whether or not that’s how he’s at all times understood himself or it’s a instrument he developed after Tokyo, it’s one thing that’s propelled him ahead. 

This isn’t the identical Ben Proud that we first met in 2013. The swimmer who stood on the Olympic podium tonight is somebody new—somebody who’s been in a position to perceive each his achievements and disappointments and use them to drag himself by means of the water and to new heights in an already spectacular profession. 

Day 7 Fast Hits

• Leon Marchand is 4/4 at these Olympic Video games. He accomplished his particular person occasions with an exclamation level, storming to the win within the 200 IM with a 1:54.06. It’s a brand new Olympic document for the Frenchman, simply .06 seconds off Ryan Lochte‘s world document, which has stood since 2011. Marchand has now turned within the second-fastest performances all time within the 200 IM, 400 IM, and 200 breaststroke, whereas additionally placing up the fourth-best 200 fly swim. It’s been a storybook dwelling Olympics for Marchand, who can be the fourth swimmer to win 4 particular person golds at a single Video games.
• There was all types of historical past made on the lads’s 50 freestyle Olympic podium. We’ve talked about Proud, Cam McEvoy is the primary Australian champion, after which there’s bronze medallist Florent Manaudou, who bought the French crowd energized effectively earlier than Marchand hit the deck. Together with his bronze medal, Manaudou is the first man to medal within the 50 freestyle at 4 consecutive Olympics, a formidable show of consistency for the 33-year-old star.
• For the second Olympics, Duncan Scott is the 200 IM silver medalist. Behind Marchand’s fireworks, Scott had a formidable swim himself, coming .03 seconds from his British document set on the Tokyo Video games with a 1:55.31. The medal can be a milestone for Scott, who passes Chris Hoy in complete Olympic medals and turns into Scotland’s most adorned Olympic athlete with seven.

Extra Day 7 Continental and Nationwide Information

• The French workforce continued their robust meet in prelims of the blended 4×100 medley relay. There, the squad of Yohann Ndoye-Brouard, Antoine Viquerat, Lilou Ressencourt, and Marie Wattel broke the nationwide document with a 3:43.99. The earlier document stood at 3:46.07 from the 2023 World Championships, which means that this group took 2.08 seconds off the mark. They’ll have an opportunity to enhance their time once more, as they certified seventh for tomorrow’s remaining.
• Nyls Korstanje broke the Dutch 100 fly document within the semifinals. Korstanje fired off a 50.59, qualifying for the ultimate because the 4th seed. He owned the earlier document, which he set at 50.79 throughout the heats of the 2023 World Championships. That remaining is led by two European swimmers, the defending silver medalist Kristof Milak (50.38) and the 2023 world champion Maxime Grousset (50.41).

European Medal Desk Through Day 7