Kristóf Milák wins Olympic gold in the 100-meter butterfly, making history

Milák advanced from the semifinal with the best time, with two others swimming times close to his: France's Maxime Grousset and Canada's Josh Liendo, who finished 3 and 4 hundredths of a second behind Milák. World record holder and defending champion Caeleb Dressel was absent from the race, as was Léon Marchand, who beat Milák in the 200-meter butterfly final and has won four Olympic golds in all, but did not compete in the 100-meter race.

Due to his best time in the semifinal, Milák was given lane 4, and he made his way to the starting stone with a straight face. Milák's start and his first 50 meters were not particularly outstanding, he wasn't even in the top three at the halfway mark, but then he got in his groove and took the lead at 75m, and then with a great reach became Olympic champion in under 50 seconds with 49.90. He is the first Hungarian Olympic champion ever in the 100-meter butterfly.

The 100 meter butterfly has been a strong event for Milák, as he won the 100-meter butterfly at the World Championships in Budapest in 2022 and was silver medallist in the same event five years earlier, also in Budapest. He had actually already won an Olympic medal in the 100-meter butterfly before too – with this year's medals Milák mirrored his results from Tokyo three years ago, when he was Olympic champion in the 200-meter butterfly and silver medallist in the 100-meter butterfly, and now he has won gold in the 100-meter butterfly and a silver in the 200-meter butterfly. This brings his tally to four Olympic medals.

Milák's preparation has been quite unorthodox. In December, head coach Csaba Sós said that he hadn't started preparing for Paris yet and was likely in a catastrophic state of preparedness. Speaking months later, at the Olympics, Sós refined his assesment saying that in the sixty years he had been in the sport, he had never seen anything like it, he had never seen someone swim like this without going through the classic training routine in the pool.

Milák's medal is the Hungarian Olympic team's seventh at the Paris Olympics.