Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Men's 200 metre butterfly

Men's 200 metre butterfly at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Competitors	44
Medalists
Michael Phelps   United States   László Cseh   Hungary   Takeshi Matsuda   Japan
«2004	2012»

Swimming events at the 2008 Summer Olympics
Freestyle
50 m		men		women
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
400 m		men		women
800 m				women
1500 m		men
Backstroke
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
Breaststroke
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
Butterfly
100 m		men		women
200 m		men		women
Individual medley
200 m		men		women
400 m		men		women
Freestyle relay
4×100 m		men		women
4×200 m		men		women
Medley relay
4×100 m		men		women
Marathon
10 km		men		women

The Men's 200 metre butterfly event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 11–13 August at the Beijing National Aquatics Center. This swimming event used the butterfly stroke. Because an Olympic size swimming pool is 50 metres long, this race consisted of four lengths of the pool.

Six heats were held, with most containing the maximum number of swimmers (eight). The heat in which a swimmer competed did not formally matter for advancement, as the swimmers with the top sixteen times from the entire field qualified for the semifinals. Two semifinal heats of eight swimmers each were held. The swimmers with the eight fastest times again advanced to the finals; there, they all competed in a single final heat to earn final placements.

The qualifying standards were for the 2008 event were 1:57.67 (A norm) and 2:01.80 (B norm). Nations with two or more swimmers meeting the A standard could enter any two such swimmers; otherwise, they could enter a single swimmer meeting the B standard.

During the final, Michael Phelps's goggles filled with water, preventing him from seeing anything while he was finishing the second lap. He nevertheless won the event in world record time, also setting the record for the Olympic athlete with the most career gold medals won. This was his tenth overall Olympic gold medal; he would go on to win another one in the 4 x 200 m freestyle relay event, held on the same day.

Records

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

World record	Michael Phelps (USA)	1:52.09	Melbourne, Australia	28 March 2007
Olympic record	Michael Phelps (USA)	1:54.04	Athens, Greece	17 August 2004	-

The following new world and Olympic records were set during this competition.

Date	Event	Name	Nationality	Time	OR	WR
August 11	Heat 6	Michael Phelps	United States	1:53.70	OR
August 12	Semifinal 2	Michael Phelps	United States	1:53.70	=OR
August 13	Final	Michael Phelps	United States	1:52.03	OR	WR

Heats

Heat 1

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	3	Niksa Roki	Croatia	1:59.58
2	5	Rehan Jehangir Poncha	India	2:01.89
3	4	Emmanuel Crescimbeni	Peru	2:02.13
4	6	Javier Hernanadez Maradiaga	Honduras	2:02.23

Heat 2

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	5	James Walsh	Philippines	1:59.39	NR
2	1	Javier Núñez	Spain	2:00.24
3	7	José Andreas González	Argentina	2:00.36
4	6	Jeongnam Yu	South Korea	2:01.00
5	8	Alexis Márquez Rivas	Venezuela	2:01.25
6	3	Douglas Lennox-Silva	Puerto Rico	2:01.69
7	4	Vladan Marković	Serbia	2:03.12
8	2	Donny Budiarto Utomo	Indonesia	2:03.44

Heat 3

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	2	Chi-Chieh Hsu	Chinese Taipei	1:56.59	Q
2	6	Pedro Oliveira	Portugal	1:57.41
3	5	Simon Sjödin	Sweden	1:57.75
4	8	Alon Mandel	Israel	1:59.27	NR
5	3	Omar Pinzón	Colombia	1:59.47
6	4	Jeremy Knowles	Bahamas	2:01.08
7	7	Daniel Bego	Malaysia	2:01.28
8	1	Georgi Palazov	Bulgaria	2:01.84

Heat 4

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	2	László Cseh	Hungary	1:54.48	Q
2	4	Paweł Korzeniowski	Poland	1:55.21	Q
3	5	Moss Burmester	New Zealand	1:55.80	Q
4	6	Dinko Jukić	Austria	1:55.96	Q
5	1	Ioan Gherghel	Romania	1:56.09	Q
6	7	Niccolo Beni	Italy	1:56.99
7	3	Denys Sylantiev	Ukraine	1:57.02
8	8	Adam Sioui	Canada	1:57.45

Heat 5

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	5	Wu Peng	China	1:55.39	Q
2	4	Gil Stovall	United States	1:55.42	Q
3	7	Michael Rock	Great Britain	1:55.55	Q
4	3	Ryuichi Shibata	Japan	1:55.82	Q
5	6	Chen Yin	China	1:56.55	Q
6	2	Christophe Lebon	France	1:56.63
7	1	Tamas Kerekjarto	Hungary	1:57.29
8	8	Iasonas Romanos Alyfantis	Greece	1:57.99

Heat 6

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	4	Michael Phelps	United States	1:53.70	Q, OR
2	3	Kaio Almeida	Brazil	1:54.65	Q
3	6	Takeshi Matsuda	Japan	1:55.06	Q
4	5	Nikolay Skvortsov	Russia	1:55.33	Q
5	1	Sergii Advena	Ukraine	1:56.24	Q
6	2	Travis Nederpelt	Australia	1:56.64
7	7	Mathieu Fonteyn	Belgium	1:56.65
8	8	Juan Veloz	Mexico	1:57.32

Semifinals

Semifinal 1

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
2	5	Takeshi Matsuda	Japan	1:54.02	Q
3	3	Nikolay Skvortsov	Russia	1:54.31	Q
4	4	László Cseh	Hungary	1:54.35	Q
7	2	Moss Burmester	New Zealand	1:55.26	Q
9	6	Gil Stovall	United States	1:55.36
10	7	Dinko Jukić	Austria	1:55.65
15	1	Sergii Advena	Ukraine	1:56.64
16	8	Chi-Chieh Hsu	Chinese Taipei	1:57.48

Semifinal 2

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	4	Michael Phelps	United States	1:53.70	Q, =OR
5	6	Wu Peng	China	1:54.93	Q
6	5	Kaio de Almeida	Brazil	1:55.21	Q
8	3	Paweł Korzeniowski	Poland	1:55.35	Q
11	8	Chin Yin	China	1:55.88
12	2	Michael Rock	Great Britain	1:55.90
13	7	Ryuichi Shibata	Japan	1:56.17
14	1	Ioan Gherghel	Romania	1:56.57

Final

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1 !	4	Michael Phelps	United States	1:52.03	WR
2 !	6	László Cseh	Hungary	1:52.70	ER
3 !	5	Takeshi Matsuda	Japan	1:52.97	AS
4	1	Moss Burmester	New Zealand	1:54.35	CR
4	2	Wu Peng	China	1:54.35
6	8	Paweł Korzeniowski	Poland	1:54.60
7	7	Kaio de Almeida	Brazil	1:54.71
8	3	Nikolay Skvortsov	Russia	1:55.14