2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25 m)

Men's 800 metre freestyle
at the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25 m)
Men's 800 metre freestyle ; at the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25 m)
Venue	Duna Arena
Location	Budapest, Hungary
Dates	14 December
Competitors	40 from 35 nations
Winning time	7:30.56
Medalists
	← 2022 2026 →

The men's 800 metre freestyle event at the 2024 World Aquatics Swimming Championships (25 m) was held on 14 December 2024 at the Duna Arena in Budapest, Hungary.^[1]^[2]

Records

Prior to the competition, the existing world and championship records were as follows.

World record	Daniel Wiffen (IRL)	7:20.46	Otopeni, Romania	10 December 2023
Competition record	Gregorio Paltrinieri (ITA)	7:29.99	Melbourne, Australia	17 December 2022

Background

The event featured several top contenders, including Australia’s Elijah Winnington and Germany’s Florian Wellbrock. While Winnington had no recorded short-course 800 m performances, he entered the meet following lifetime bests in long course (7:42.95 at the 2024 World Championships and 7:42.86 at the Paris Olympics). Wellbrock, the short-course world record holder in the 1500 m freestyle, owned a personal best of 7:27.99 from the 2021 European Short Course Championships. Germany’s Sven Schwarz, a 2024 Olympic finalist, entered with a season best of 7:37.02 and a lifetime best of 7:33.85. Tunisia’s Ahmed Jaouadi posted a 7:33.84 in May 2024, ranking first in the world that season. Other contenders included Sweden’s Victor Johansson (7:33.11), Italy’s Luca De Tullio (7:34.08), Hungary’s Zalán Sárkány (7:34.41), and France’s Damien Joly (7:36.59).^[3]

SwimSwam predicted Jaouadi would win, Winnington would come second, and Sárkány would come third.^[3]

Results

The slowest heats were started at 11:13, and the fastest heat at 18:54.^[4]

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
	5	7	Zalán Sárkány	Hungary	7:30.56	NR
	3	2	Florian Wellbrock	Germany	7:31.90
	5	5	Ahmed Jaouadi	Tunisia	7:31.93	AF
4	4	5	Sven Schwarz	Germany	7:33.24
5	5	6	Luca De Tullio	Italy	7:34.32
6	5	4	Victor Johansson	Sweden	7:34.65
7	3	5	Elijah Winnington	Australia	7:35.34
8	5	1	Nathan Wiffen	Ireland	7:35.92
9	5	3	Savelii Luzin	Neutral Athletes B	7:36.19
10	3	1	Daniel Matheson	United States	7:37.14
11	5	8	Dimitrios Markos	Greece	7:37.32
12	5	2	Kirill Martynychev	Neutral Athletes B	7:39.26
13	3	8	Krzysztof Chmielewski	Poland	7:39.75
14	4	4	Damien Joly	France	7:40.77
15	3	4	Carlos Garach	Spain	7:41.70
16	4	1	Kuzey Tunçelli	Turkey	7:42.39
17	4	2	Ondřej Gemov	Czech Republic	7:42.50
18	4	9	Charlie Clark	United States	7:43.87
19	4	6	Kazushi Imafuku	Japan	7:44.10
20	4	7	Rami Rahmouni	Tunisia	7:44.40
21	3	6	Zhao Heting	China	7:45.40
22	2	4	Sašo Boškan	Slovenia	7:45.58
23	3	7	Andrei Proca	Romania	7:46.86
24	4	0	Muhammed Yusuf Özden	Turkey	7:47.94
25	3	9	Timothé Barbeau	Canada	7:48.20
26	4	3	Kim Jun-woo	South Korea	7:49.71
27	4	8	José Paulo Lopes	Portugal	7:51.23
28	3	3	Kris Mihaylov	South Africa	7:53.06
29	2	5	Mark Iltšišin	Estonia	7:55.30
30	2	7	Marin Mogić	Croatia	7:55.55	NR
31	3	0	Muhd Dhuha Bin Zulfikry	Malaysia	7:56.81
32	2	0	Liggjas Joensen	Faroe Islands	8:00.75
33	2	1	Diego Dulieu	Honduras	8:01.94	NR
34	2	6	Larn Hamblyn-Ough	New Zealand	8:06.19
35	2	9	Nikola Gjuretanovikj	North Macedonia	8:06.79	NR
36	2	3	Wang Yi Shun	Hong Kong	8:08.22
37	2	8	Chirill Chirsanov	Moldova	8:10.89
38	1	4	Alberto Vega	Costa Rica	8:11.18	NR
39	1	3	Vladimir Hernández	Cuba	8:34.19
40	1	5	Christian Chang-Chipolina	Gibraltar	8:59.87
	1	6	Ali Jaafar	Iraq	Did not start
	2	2	Antonio Djakovic	Switzerland	Did not start