Swimming at the 2008 Summer Olympics – Women's 400 metre individual medley

Women's 400 metre individual medley at the Games of the XXIX Olympiad
Stephanie Rice
Competitors	38
Medalists
Stephanie Rice   Australia   Kirsty Coventry   Zimbabwe   Katie Hoff   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 women's 400 metre individual medley event at the 2008 Olympic Games took place on 9-10 August 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 eight lengths of the pool. The first two lengths were swum using the butterfly stroke, the second pair with the backstroke, the third pair of lengths in breaststroke, and the final two were 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.

Five 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 eight times from the entire field qualified for the final; there, they all competed in a single final heat to earn final placements.

The qualifying standards were for the 2008 event were 4:45.10 (A norm) and 4:55.06 (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	Katie Hoff (USA)	4:31.12	Omaha, USA	29 June 2008
Olympic record	Yana Klochkova (UKR)	4:33.59	Sydney, Australia	16 September 2000	-

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

Date	Event	Name	Nationality	Time	OR	WR
August 10	Final	Stephanie Rice	Australia	4:29.45	OR	WR

Heats

Rank	Name	Nationality	Time	Heat	Lane	Notes
1	Elizabeth Beisel	United States	4:34.55	3	4	Q
2	Katie Hoff	United States	4:34.63	5	4	Q
3	Alessia Filippi	Italy	4:35.11	3	5	Q
3	Stephanie Rice	Australia	4:35.11	4	4	Q
5	Yana Martinova	Russia	4:36.25	3	3	Q
6	Li Xuanxu	China	4:36.35	4	3	Q
7	Kirsty Coventry	Zimbabwe	4:36.43	4	5	Q
8	Hannah Miley	Great Britain	4:36.56	5	5	Q
9	Katarzyna Baranowska	Poland	4:36.95	4	7	NR
10	Katheryn Meaklim	South Africa	4:37.11	4	1
11	Maiko Fujino	Japan	4:37.35	3	7
12	Katinka Hosszú	Hungary	4:37.55	5	3
13	Zsuzsanna Jakabos	Hungary	4:37.86	5	2
14	Mireia Belmonte	Spain	4:37.91	5	7
15	Keri-Anne Payne	Great Britain	4:38.69	3	6
16	Anja Klinar	Slovenia	4:38.90	5	8
17	Joanna Maranhão	Brazil	4:40.18	2	3
18	Sara Nordenstam	Norway	4:40.28	2	7	NR
19	Camille Muffat	France	4:40.29	4	6
20	Tanya Hunks	Canada	4:40.63	3	8
21	Jessica Pengelly	South Africa	4:41.04	5	1
22	Samantha Hamill	Australia	4:41.89	3	1
23	Joanne Andraca	France	4:43.88	5	6
24	Helen Norfolk	New Zealand	4:44.22	3	2
25	Liu Jing	China	4:44.96	2	5
26	Jördis Steinegger	Austria	4:45.15	2	1
27	Saori Haruguchi	Japan	4:45.22	4	2
28	Yu-seon Nam	South Korea	4:46.74	1	3
29	Alexa Komarnycky	Canada	4:46.98	4	8
30	Susana Escobar	Mexico	4:47.32	2	8
31	Svetlana Karpeeva	Russia	4:50.22	2	6
32	Ting Wen Quah	Singapore	4:51.25	1	6
33	Katharina Schiller	Germany	4:51.52	2	2
34	Yih Way Lew	Malaysia	4:55.83	1	4
35	Anna-Liisa Põld	Estonia	4:58.21	1	5
36	Georgina Bardach	Argentina	5:00.87	2	4
37	Nimitta Thaveesupsoonthorn	Thailand	5:02.18	1	7
38	Maroua Mathlouthi	Tunisia	DNS	1	2

Final

Rank	Lane	Name	Nationality	Time	Notes
1 !	6	Stephanie Rice	Australia	4:29.45	WR
2 !	1	Kirsty Coventry	Zimbabwe	4:29.89	AF
3 !	5	Katie Hoff	United States	4:31.71
4	4	Elizabeth Beisel	United States	4:34.24
5	3	Alessia Filippi	Italy	4:34.34
6	8	Hannah Miley	Great Britain	4:39.44
7	2	Yana Martinova	Russia	4:40.04
8	7	Li Xuanxu	China	4:42.13

AF = African record