Swimming at the 1972 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre freestyle


The men's 100 metre freestyle event at the 1972 Olympic Games took place between September 2 and 3.

Competition format

The competition used a three-round format. The advancement rule mostly followed the format introduced in 1952, though the number of semifinals was reduced from 3 to 2 and qualification for the final was done via place with wild cards in the semifinals. Swim-offs were used as necessary to break ties.
A swimmer's place in the heat was not used to determine advancement; instead, the fastest times from across all heats in a round were used. There were 7 heats scheduled, with 7 or 8 swimmers each. Due to withdrawals, some heats had as few as 6 swimmers. The top 16 swimmers advanced to the semifinals.
There were 2 semifinals of 8 swimmers each. The top 3 swimmers in each semifinal as well as the next 2 fastest swimmers advanced to the final.
This swimming event used freestyle swimming, which means that the method of the stroke is not regulated. Nearly all swimmers use the front crawl or a variant of that stroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of two lengths of the pool.
For the first time at the Olympics, times were reported to the hundredths of a second.

Results

Heats

16 fastest swimmer from seven heats advanced to semifinal.
RankHeatSwimmerNationTimeNotes
17Mike Wenden52.34
26Jerry Heidenreich52.38
37Mark Spitz52.46
43Vladimir Bure52.87
57Klaus Steinbach52.91
64Michel Rousseau52.93
75John Murphy53.07
82Igor Grivennikov53.64
93Jorge Comas53.70
106Brian Phillips53.75
115Georgijs Kuļikovs53.78
124Kersten Meier53.96
134Greg Rogers53.98
143José Aranha54.06
156Bob Kasting54.07
165Peter Bruch54.25
171Ruy de Oliveira54.26
186Gerhard Schiller54.28
191Gilles Vigne54.34
204Hartmut Flöckner54.36
211Wilfried Hartung54.37
222Colin Herring54.41
227Fritz Warncke54.41
242Alain Hermitte54.57
251Malcolm Windeatt54.70
262István Szentirmay54.71
277Roberto Pangaro54.74
284Bruce Robertson54.76
295Paulo Zanetti54.97
305Brian Brinkley55.06
313Hanspeter Würmli55.08
323Neil Rogers55.32
337Marian Slavic55.35
346Attila Császári55.37
356Finnur Garðarsson55.97
355Zbigniew Pacelt55.97
375Andrew Hunter56.09
381Geoffrey Ferreira56.27
396Salvador Vilanova56.57
402Antonio Ferracuti56.69
411Roberto Strauss56.78
422Sandro Rudan56.91
437Jorge van Balen57.20
446Wong Ronnie57.53
453Samnang Prak59.18
464Feridun Aybars59.32
472Bruno Bassoul1:00.8
485Abdullah Abdulrahman1:03.94

Semifinals

Top three swimmers in each heat and next two fastest advanced to the final.

Semifinal 1

RankSwimmerNationTimeNotes
1Jerry Heidenreich52.31
2Igor Grivennikov52.55
3Vladimir Bure52.60
4Michel Rousseau52.82
5José Aranha53.47
6Brian Phillips53.73
7Peter Bruch53.97
8Kersten Meier54.35

Semifinal 2

RankSwimmerNationTimeNotes
1Mike Wenden52.32
2Mark Spitz52.43
3Klaus Steinbach52.87
4John Murphy53.17
5Bob Kasting53.62
6Georgijs Kuļikovs53.68
7Jorge Comas53.92
8Greg Rogers54.26

Final

RankSwimmerNationTimeNotes
Mark Spitz51.22
Jerry Heidenreich51.65
Vladimir Bure51.77
4John Murphy52.08
5Mike Wenden52.41
6Igor Grivennikov52.44
7Michel Rousseau52.90
8Klaus Steinbach52.92