Wikipedia

Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 400 metre individual medley

The men's 400 metre individual medley event at the 1972 Summer Olympics took place August 30.[1] This swimming event used medley swimming. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of eight lengths of the pool. The first two lengths were swum using the butterfly stroke, the second pair with the backstroke, the third pair of lengths in breaststroke, and the final two were freestyle. Unlike other events using freestyle, swimmers could not use butterfly, backstroke, or breaststroke for the freestyle leg; most swimmers use the front crawl in freestyle events.

Final with controversial margin edit

The final was won by Gunnar Larsson, who succeeded over second-placed Tim McKee by two thousandths of a second.[2] This margin in effect brought about a change in the competition, so that no swimming competition henceforward would have to be decided by a margin less than a hundredth of a second.[3]

Medalists edit

Gold Gunnar Larsson
  Sweden
Silver Tim McKee
  United States
Bronze András Hargitay
  Hungary

Results edit

Heats edit

Heat 1

Rank Athlete Country Time Notes
1 András Hargitay   Hungary 4:37.51
2 Christian Lietzmann   East Germany 4:44.47
3 Roger van Hamburg   Netherlands 4:50.70
4 José Luis Prado   Mexico 4:54.49
5 Barry Prime   Great Britain 4:57.77
6 Jairulla Jaitulla   Philippines 5:05.48

Heat 2

Rank Athlete Country Time Notes
1 Gunnar Larsson   Sweden 4:34.99
2 John McConnochie   New Zealand 4:49.89
3 Valentyn Partyka   Soviet Union 4:50.03
4 David Brumwell   Canada 4:52.41
5 Jiro Sasaki   Japan 4:53.65
6 Antônio Azevedo   Brazil 4:57.27
7 Hsu Tung-hsiung   Chinese Taipei 5:09.56

Heat 3

Rank Athlete Country Time Notes
1 Steve Furniss   United States 4:39.33
2 Ricardo Marmolejo   Mexico 4:45.20
3 Bertram Türpe   East Germany 4:46.55
4 Neil Martin   Australia 4:49.85
5 Csaba Sós   Hungary 4:52.89
6 Sverre Kile   Norway 4:59.72
7 Guðmundur Gíslason   Iceland 5:03.54

Heat 4

Rank Athlete Country Time Notes
1 Tim McKee   United States 4:40.78
2 Graham Windeatt   Australia 4:42.16
3 Mikhail Sukharev   Soviet Union 4:43.13
4 Hans-Joachim Geisler   West Germany 4:48.57
5 Mauro Calligaris   Italy 4:52.02
6 Mike Holthaus   West Germany 4:58.19

Heat 5

Rank Athlete Country Time Notes
1 Bengt Gingsjö   Sweden 4:38.05
2 Gary Hall   United States 4:38.95
3 Wolfram Sperling   East Germany 4:42.75
4 Jorge Delgado Jr.   Ecuador 4:45.25
5 Bruce Featherston   Australia 4:47.33
6 Zbigniew Pacelt   Poland 4:55.38

Final edit

Rank Athlete Country Time Notes
  Gunnar Larsson   Sweden 4:31.98(1) OR
  Tim McKee   United States 4:31.98(3) OR
  András Hargitay   Hungary 4:32.70
4 Steve Furniss   United States 4:35.44
5 Gary Hall, Sr.   United States 4:37.38
6 Bengt Gingsjö   Sweden 4:37.96
7 Graham Windeatt   Australia 4:40.39
8 Wolfram Sperling   East Germany 4:40.66

Key: OR = Olympic record

References edit

  1. ^ "Swimming at the 1972 Munich Summer Games: Men's 400 metres Individual Medley". Sports Reference. Archived from the original on 17 April 2020. Retrieved 26 November 2016.
  2. ^ "August 9, 2008." SwimmersWorld.com. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
  3. ^ "Munich 1972." Swedish Olympic Committee, 2008. Retrieved 2012-05-01.
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