100 metres freestyle
event in swimming
The 100 metres freestyle is often considered to be the highlight (Blue Ribbon event) of the sport of swimming, like 100 metres in the sport of athletics, symbolizing the pinnacle of speed and athleticism in swimming competitions.
The first swimmer to break the one-minute barrier (long course) was Johnny Weissmuller, in 1922. The current world record holders (long course) are China's Pan Zhanle (since 2024) and the Netherlands' Marrit Steenbergen (since 2026).
Australian Dawn Fraser won the event a record three times at the Olympics, and she is the only woman to win it more than once. Four men, American Duke Kahanamoku, Weissmuller, Russian Alexander Popov, and Dutchman Pieter van den Hoogenband won the event at the Olympics twice. Popov was also world champion (held since 1973) three times.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “100 metres freestyle” as event in swimming. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The subject matters to the history & society register because the source frames it as event in swimming. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The record creator and administrative purpose are central evidence, because official documentation reflects both action and institutional priorities. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5107751. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1922, 2024, 2026 and 1973.
Later summaries often reconcile disputed chronology or motive more neatly than the contemporary record permits. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “100 metres freestyle” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.