Australia has a long and illustrious tradition of distance freestyle success, the 400m ranks no stranger to gold, Murray Rose (x2), Brad Cooper, Ian Thorpe (x2) and Mack Horton a part of a rich history. On the first day of finals in Paris, the two men who claimed the 2022 and 2023 World titles, respectively Elijah Winnington and Sam Short, have Dolphin hopes leaping high, with good reason.

Final: July 27, 8.52pm - Paris La Defense Arena (heats, morning of the same day)

There are only two men in Paris who have ever clocked 3:40. Winnington, seventh at Tokyo 2020 but world champion in 3:41.22 at Budapest 2022, is not one of them. Yet.

There's a great Paris race in prospect , one that might even hail the first sub-3:40 in history. Top of the heap is a 3:40.33 from Lukas Martens, the German champion who was on 3:42s when he made the 2022 (silver) and 2023 (bronze) World-Championship podiums.

At national trials in Berlin, Martens' gauntlet thudded in as the swiftest textile time ever by a German swimmer and third fastest ever behind two men no longer in the fight. The World record remains in the grip of another German champion, Paul Biedermann, at 3:40.07, the time he clocked in a shiny suit at Rome 2009 World titles to shave 0.01sec off Thorpe's 2002 standard. 

The Thorpedo, Olympic champion at Sydney 2000 and Athens 2004, retains the fastest swim ever but the non-textile suits were approved for the 2008 and 2009 seasons before the performance-enhancing garments were banned from January 1, 2010. The all-time rankings in many events, particularly sprint events for men, remain heavy on entries from 2008-09. 

Whether we take Paul or Ian as the high bar, or both, their test to the 3:40 mark is living on borrowed time, the building dam suggests. Short took the 2023 World crown in 3:40.68 0.02sec ahead of Tokyo 2020ne Olympic champion Ahmed Hafnaoui, who will not defend in Paris, for reasons set out below.

Between Martens, Short and Winnington, we have a front line of title/podium contenders who have amassed 7 sub-3:42s, 15 sub-3:43s and 21 sub 3:43.5s since 2021 - and 20 of those 21 swims between 2022 and 2024, most of them within the past two years.

Pressure on them and the dam comes in the shape of South Korea’s Kim Woomin, with a best of 3:42.42 as fourth swiftest among those heading into battle next week. Kim clocked 3:42.71 for the 2024 intercalated world title in a tussle with Winnington, 3:42.86, and Martens, 3:42.96, as they prepared for bigger moments, just where they all were in those preparations back in February making the result on that day in Doha impossible to say anything more than 'contenders all'.

Then, back to the annual top 10, there's Germany’s Oliver Klemet, on 3:42.81 at Germany's Olympic trials. Britain has no charge in the fight but has plenty to support: Felix Auboeck, of Austria and fourth at Tokyo 2020ne, Lucas Henveaux, of Belgium, and Daniel Wiffen, of Ireland, are all training partners at Loughborough and in the top 10 among those bound for the eight-length bout in Paris.

The Americas have two men in that chasing pack, Brazilian Guilherme Costa and American Aaron Shackell. At least two of those top 10 men won't make the final. The last American to hold the record was Brian Goodell, the 1976 Olympic 400 and 1500m freestyle champion at a USA Vs GDR duel in West Berlin on August 27, 1977. He held the mark at 3:51.56 until April 6, 1979, when Vladimir Salnikov of the Soviet Union clocked 3:51.41 at a URS vs GDR meet in Potsdam.

Since then, the record has been in Australian hands for most of the intervening years, courtesy of Kieren Perkins and Thorpe, who would still be the standard bearer 22 years after he clocked 3:40.08 at the Commonwealth Games in Manchester had it not been for shiny suits such as the Arena X-Glide worn by Biedermann as the winner of Suit Wars in Rome, his 52.90 last 100m more than 2secs faster than the best of the 2023 World podium battlers managed to muster. 

One of the finishing splits closest to Biedermann's in Rome was the 54.33 in which Winnington returned for gold at 2022 World titles.

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In the rest of this article: the stats, the facts, the Tokyo 2020ne flashback and an overview of Olympic 400m free history.