Cameron McEvoy makes history for Australia in 50m freestyle

Australian swimmers continue to dominate the Paris 2024 Olympics. Cameron McEvoy was the latest Aussie to win gold in the City of Lights. The Queensland native brought home gold after winning the 50m freestyle. McEvoy is the first ever Australian to medal in that event.

McEvoy makes history

The 50m freestyle swimming race was introduced as an Olympic event back in 1988. Aussies have excelled swimming since well before then. Only the United States has won more Olympics swimming medals than Australia. 

Despite Australia’s dominance, no Aussie has ever won a medal at the 50m freestyle. Until now at least. Cameron McEvoy finally broke Australia’s bad luck at this event. 

The 30-year-old put on a performance for the ages on Friday. McEvoy was placed in lane five. This put him right alongside the betting sites favourite Ben Proud of Great Britain. 

Proud and McEvoy finished joint-top of the semi-final races. However, the Briton had much more experience in 50m races. This gave him the edge with the sports betting houses. 

There was nothing to separate the swimmers through the first 25m. In the end, Australia’s star just barely won out. McEvoy won the race by just 0.05 seconds. Ben Proud finished second, while France’s Florent Manaudou won the bronze.

Eurosport commentators called the finish “unbelievable.” It was the closest finish since the 2016 50m freestyle when the US’s Anthony Ervin beat Florent Manaudou by 0.01 seconds. 

Comeback story for McEvoy 

The big win was as unbelievable for McEvoy as it was for the commentators watching the race. After his gold medal performance, McEvoy revealed that he thought his swimming career was over before the Olympics. 

“Two years ago, I didn't even think I'd have a lane here,” McEvoy said, “I was not even thinking about swimming.”

McEvoy had previously been a 100m swimmer. He won two bronze medals at the 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics as a part of Australia’s 4x100m freestyle and 4x100m medley teams. He won another bronze in the 4x100m freestyle in Tokyo in 2020. 

After Tokyo, McEvoy focused on training for the shorter 50m race. All of Australia should be thankful for that. McEvoy’s decision will go down as one of the best in Aussie swimming history now the country we finally has a 50m freestyle medal in its collection.