Swimming at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's 100 metre breaststroke


The men's 100 metre breaststroke event at the 2012 Summer Olympics took place on 28–29 July at the London Aquatics Centre in London, United Kingdom.
Cameron van der Burgh smashed a new world record to end South Africa's medal drought for an Olympic gold in the event. He blasted out to a 27.07 split on the first length, and pulled strongly ahead of the field to touch the wall first in 58.46, slashing 0.12 seconds off the record set by Australia's Brenton Rickard in a high-tech bodysuit from the 2009 World Championships. An underwater camera footage also showed him executing three illegal butterfly kicks on the pullout, but the champion later admitted that he was not doing it, "you are falling behind or giving yourself a disadvantage." Rickard's teammate Christian Sprenger ripped off a sterling time of 58.93 to snatch the silver, moving him to sixth all time in the event's history. Meanwhile, U.S. swimmer Brendan Hansen ended his three-year retirement to take the bronze in 59.49.
Hungary's Dániel Gyurta finished off the podium with a fourth-place time and a national record in 59.53. Japan's defending Olympic champion Kosuke Kitajima witnessed his three-peat bid come to an end with a fifth-place time in 59.79. Rickard, the former world record holder, earned a sixth spot in 59.87, while Italy's Fabio Scozzoli and Lithuania's Giedrius Titenis closed out the field.
Earlier in the semifinals, Van der Burgh cleared a 59-second barrier for the second time in his career and the first in textile to pick up a final top seed in 58.83, erasing Kitajima's 2008 Olympic record by eight-hundredths of a second.

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.
The following records were established during the competition:
DateEventNameNationalityTimeRecord
July 28Semifinal 1Cameron van der Burgh58.83
July 29FinalCameron van der Burgh58.46,

Results

Heats

RankHeatLaneNameNationalityTimeNotes
163Christian Sprenger59.62Q
264Kosuke Kitajima59.63Q
362Giedrius Titenis59.68Q
446Dániel Gyurta59.76Q, NR
553Glenn Snyders59.78Q, NR
644Cameron van der Burgh59.79Q
752Scott Dickens59.85Q, NR
865Ryo Tateishi59.86Q
957Michael Jamieson59.89Q
1045Brendan Hansen59.93Q
1156Eric Shanteau59.96Q
1254Fabio Scozzoli59.99Q
1342Craig Benson1:00.04Q
1443Brenton Rickard1:00.07Q
1555Felipe França Silva1:00.38Q
1666Felipe Lima1:00.57Q
1734Giacomo Perez d'Ortona1:00.59
1851Damir Dugonjic1:00.77
1961Christian vom Lehn1:00.78
2047Lennart Stekelenburg1:00.96
2167Hendrik Feldwehr1:01.00
2236Panagiotis Samilidis1:01.20
2341Valeriy Dymo1:01.27
2358Mattia Pesce1:01.27
2531Carlos Almeida1:01.40
2623Laurent Carnol1:01.46
2768Roman Sloudnov1:01.47
2833Li Xiayan1:01.55
2938Martin Liivamägi1:01.57
2948Barry Murphy1:01.57
3126Čaba Silađi1:01.95
3232Dawid Szulich1:02.07
3235Imri Ganiel1:02.07
3424Vladislav Polyakov1:02.15
3522Edgar Crespo1:02.18
3625Jakob Jóhann Sveinsson1:02.65
3721Malick Fall1:02.93
3737Dragos Agache1:02.93
3928Azad Al-Barazi1:03.48NR
4027Danila Artiomov1:03.57
4114Amini Fonua1:03.65
4213Mubarak Al Besher1:05.26
4315Diguan Pigot1:05.55
4416Wael Koubrousli1:07.06

Semifinals

Semifinal 1

Semifinal 2

Final