Swimming at the 2012 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre butterfly


The men's 200 metre butterfly event at the 2012 Summer Olympics took place on 30–31 July at the London Aquatics Centre in London, United Kingdom.
For the second time at the 2012 Olympic Games, Michael Phelps fell short in his attempt to win the same event three consecutive times, due to a spectacular performance from South Africa's Chad le Clos. Phelps was considered a favorite to win the race, but Le Clos came from third at the final turn to edge out the superstar by five-hundredths of a second for the gold medal and an African record in 1:52.96. By finishing with a time of 1:53.01, Phelps earned his second silver medal of the games, bringing his overall total to eighteen, and matching Larisa Latynina's record of eighteen medals as the most decorated Olympic athlete of all time. Japan's Takeshi Matsuda managed to repeat his bronze from Beijing four years earlier in 1:53.21.
Austria's Dinko Jukić, who claimed the top seed earlier in the prelims, missed the podium by over a body length with a fourth-place time and a national record in 1:54.35. U.S. swimmer Tyler Clary finished fifth in 1:55.06 to hold off a close battle from Serbia's Velimir Stjepanović and Poland's three-time Olympic finalist Paweł Korzeniowski by a hundredth of a second each. China's Chen Yin rounded out the historic finale with an eighth-place time in 1:55.18.
Hungary's László Cseh missed a chance to reach the final roster and defend his Olympic silver medal after placing twelfth in the semifinals.

Records

Prior to this competition, the world and Olympic records were:

Results

Heats

RankHeatLaneNameNationalityTimeNotes
153Dinko Jukić1:54.79Q
256Tyler Clary1:54.96Q
337Velimir Stjepanović1:54:99Q, NR
433Chad le Clos1:55.23Q
554Michael Phelps1:55.53Q
635Chen Yin1:55.60Q
736Kazuya Kaneda1:55.70Q
844Takeshi Matsuda1:55.81Q
943László Cseh1:55.86Q
1034Wu Peng1:55.88Q
1152Paweł Korzeniowski1:56.09Q
1255Nick D'Arcy1:56.25Q
1345Bence Biczó1:56.51Q
1451Chris Wright1:56.69Q
1541Nikolay Skvortsov1:56.76Q
1631Ioannis Drymonakos1:56.97Q
1746Kaio de Almeida1:56.99
1732Joe Roebuck1:56.99
1947Marcin Cieślak1:57.07
2057Roberto Pavoni1:57.55
2142Leonardo de Deus1:58.03
2223Pedro Oliveira1:58.45
2348Stefanos Dimitriadis1:58.79
2438Robert Žbogar1:58.99
2528Mauricio Fiol1:59.02NR
2658Joseph Schooling1:59.18
2721Marcos Lavado1:59.31
2822Illya Chuyev1:59.65
2925Alexandru Coci1:59.67
3027Hsu Chi-Chieh1:59.81
3126David Sharpe1:59.87
3214Gal Nevo1:59.98
3324Alexandre Liess2:00.13
3413Omar Pinzón2:02.32
3516Diego Castillo2:04.72
3615Yousef Al-Askari2:05.41
3712Hocine Haciane2:06.37

Semifinals

Semifinal 1

Semifinal 2

Final