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

Men's 200 metre individual medley at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Competitors	47
Medalists
Michael Phelps   United States   László Cseh   Hungary   Ryan Lochte   United States
«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 individual medley event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place between August 13 and 15, at the Beijing National Aquatics Center. 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.

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 for the 2008 event were 2:01.40 (A norm) and 2:05.65 (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.

Records

Prior to this competition, the existing world and Olympic records were as follows.

World record	Michael Phelps (USA)	1:54.80	Omaha, USA	5 July 2008
Olympic record	Michael Phelps (USA)	1:57.14	Athens, Greece	19 August 2004	-

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

Date	Event	Name	Nationality	Time	OR	WR
August 15	Final	Michael Phelps	United States	1:54.23	OR	WR

Heats

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	5	4	Ryan Lochte	United States	1:58.15	Q
2	4	4	László Cseh	Hungary	1:58.29	Q
3	5	5	Thiago Pereira	Brazil	1:58.41	Q
4	4	6	Ken Takakuwa	Japan	1:58.51	Q
5	4	7	Bradley Ally	Barbados	1:58.57	Q, NR
6	6	4	Michael Phelps	United States	1:58.65	Q
7	5	7	Alessio Boggiatto	Italy	1:58.80	Q
8	6	2	Takuro Fujii	Japan	1:59.19	Q
9	5	1	Keith Beavers	Canada	1:59.19	Q
10	6	1	Darian Townsend	South Africa	1:59.22	Q
11	6	6	Vytautas Janušaitis	Lithuania	1:59.63	Q
12	3	1	Gal Nevo	Israel	1:59.66	Q
13	6	5	James Goddard	Great Britain	1:59.74	Q
14	4	5	Liam Tancock	Great Britain	1:59.79	Q
15	5	6	Leith Brodie	Australia	1:59.96	Q
16	4	3	Dinko Jukić	Austria	2:00.57	Q
17	5	3	Tamas Kerekjarto	Hungary	2:00.60
18	6	3	Brian Johns	Canada	2:00.66
19	6	7	Diogo Carvalho	Portugal	2:00.66
20	3	6	Mihail Alexandrov	Bulgaria	2:00.70
21	5	2	Dean Kent	New Zealand	2:01.12
22	6	8	Alexander Tikhonov	Russia	2:01.21
23	3	5	Ioannis Kokkodis	Greece	2:01.22
24	3	8	Jeremy Knowles	Bahamas	2:01.35	NR
25	2	6	Gard Kvale	Norway	2:01.52	NR
26	4	2	Łukasz Wójt	Poland	2:01.54
27	2	3	Miguel Molina	Philippines	2:01.61
28	2	4	Vadym Lepskyy	Ukraine	2:01.73
29	3	7	Sasa Impric	Croatia	2:01.83
30	1	7	Omar Pinzón	Colombia	2:02.28
31	2	2	Tomas Fucik	Czech Republic	2:02.85
32	1	5	Chris Christensen	Denmark	2:02.93
33	4	1	Brenton Cabello	Spain	2:03.08
34	3	4	Jingyu Qu	China	2:03.15
35	4	8	Martin Liivamägi	Estonia	2:03.56
36	2	5	Nicholas Bovell	Trinidad and Tobago	2:03.90
37	3	3	Dmitriy Gordiyenko	Kazakhstan	2:03.92
38	1	1	Andrejs Duda	Latvia	2:04.18
39	5	8	Robin van Aggele	Netherlands	2:04.33
40	3	2	Markus Deibler	Germany	2:04.54
41	1	2	Mehdi Hamama	Algeria	2:04.91
42	2	8	Serkan Atasay	Turkey	2:05.25
43	2	1	Leopoldo José Andara González	Venezuela	2:05.71
44	1	4	Meomho Park	South Korea	2:06.17
45	1	3	Iurii Zakharov	Kyrgyzstan	2:07.01
46	1	6	Danil Bugakov	Uzbekistan	2:10.04
47	2	7	Andrew Bree	Ireland	DNS

• Q = Qualified
• DNS = Did Not Start

Semifinals

Rank	Heat	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1	2	4	Ryan Lochte	United States	0:1:57.69	Q
2	1	3	Michael Phelps	United States	0:1:57.70	Q
3	2	5	Thiago Pereira	Brazil	0:1:58.06	Q
4	1	4	László Cseh	Hungary	0:1:58.19	Q
5	1	5	Ken Takakuwa	Japan	1:58.49	Q
6	2	1	James Goddard	Great Britain	1:58.63	Q
7	1	1	Liam Tancock	Great Britain	1:59.42	Q
8	1	6	Keith Beavers	Canada	1:59.43	Q
9	2	3	Bradley Ally	Barbados	1:59.53
10	2	2	Takuro Fujii	Japan	1:59.59
11	1	2	Darian Townsend	South Africa	1:59.65
12	2	6	Alessio Boggiatto	Italy	1:59.77
13	1	7	Gal Nevo	Israel	2:00.43
14	2	8	Leith Brodie	Australia	2:00.57
15	2	7	Vytautas Janušaitis	Lithuania	2:00.76
16	1	8	Dinko Jukić	Austria	2:00.98

Final

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1 !	5	Michael Phelps	United States	1:54.23	WR
2 !	6	László Cseh	Hungary	1:56.52	ER
3 !	4	Ryan Lochte	United States	1:56.53
4	3	Thiago Pereira	Brazil	1:58.14
5	2	Ken Takakuwa	Japan	1:58.22	AS
6	7	James Goddard	Great Britain	1:59.24
7	8	Keith Beavers	Canada	1:59.43
8	1	Liam Tancock	Great Britain	2:00.76