Florent Manaudou, the 2012 Olympic champion in the 50m freestyle, clocked Thursday night’s fastest time in the field at 21.32 seconds to advance to Friday’s final in first place.
In the second semifinal, the U.S.’ Anthony Ervin and Ukraine’s Andriy Govorov tied at 21.46 seconds.
Nathan Adrian, who Wednesday night earned a bronze medal in the 100m freestyle and a 4x100m freestyle relay gold medal earlier in the week, advanced in fourth place with his time of 21.47 seconds.
Ervin earned a gold medal as part of the qualifying squad of the 4x100m freestyle relay, but he doesn’t know what he’ll do with it.