Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre individual medley explained

The men's 200 metre individual medley event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place September 3, 1972.^[1] This swimming event used medley swimming. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of four lengths of the pool. The first length was swum using the butterfly stroke, the second with the backstroke, the third length in breaststroke, and the fourth 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 anyway.

Results

Heats

Heat 1

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1			2:12.87
2			2:13.19
3			2:16.54
4			2:18.34
5			2:19.47
6			2:24.61

Heat 2

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1			2:10.88
2			2:15.18
3			2:15.19
4			2:16.84
5			2:20.00
6			2:20.08
7			2:34.82

Heat 3

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1			2:09.70
2			2:13.84
3			2:17.71
4			2:19.41
5			2:19.98
6			2:24.43
7			2:18.84	DQ

Heat 4

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1			2:10.44
2			2:11.70
3			2:13.25
4			2:15.04
5			2:16.17
6			2:16.24
7			2:17.14

Heat 5

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1			2:09.97
2			2:12.46
3			2:13.24
4			2:15.82
5			2:17.35
6			2:27.78
7			2:32.67

Heat 6

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
1			2:09.85
2			2:11.91
3			2:13.42
4			2:16.56
5			2:17.23
6			2:19.00

Final

Rank	Athlete	Country	Time	Notes
			2:07.17	WR
			2:08.37
			2:08.45
4			2:08.49
5			2:09.66
6			2:11.78
7			2:11.87
8			2:13.56

Key: WR = World record

Notes and References

1. Web site: Swimming at the 1972 Munich Summer Games: Men's 200 metres Individual Medley . https://web.archive.org/web/20200417055235/https://www.sports-reference.com/olympics/summer/1972/SWI/mens-200-metres-individual-medley.html . dead . 17 April 2020 . 26 November 2016 . Sports Reference.